OF  LIFE 


CAIUS  GLENN  ATKINS 


SEP:^€)  191^ 


BX  7233  .A8  G6  1917 
Atkins,  Gaius  Glenn,  1868- 
The  Godward  side  of  life 


r 


THE  GODWARD  SIDE  OF  LIFE 


A". 


THE  GODWA 
SIDE  OF  LIFE 


SEP  20  1918 


BY 


GAIUS  GLENN  ATKINS,  D.D. 


THE   PILGRIM   PRESS 
BOSTON  CHICAGO 


Copyright  1917 
By  frank  M.  SHELDON 


THE  PILGRIM  PRESS 
BOSTON 


3fav  IFiftg  f rara  a  iiinifitrr 


FOREWORD 

These  sermons  are  offered  to  those  who  will  read  them 
in  the  hope  that  they  may  have  a  message  for  our  time. 
They  were  all,  with  one  exception  —  the  sermon  before 
the  American  Board  —  given  to  the  people  of  two  par- 
ishes —  the  First  Church  in  Detroit  or  the  Central 
Church  in  Providence  —  in  the  ordered  course  of  our 
parish  life  and  were  meant  for  the  people  to  whom  they 
were  preached  and  colored  by  the  conditions  under  which 
they  were  given.  So  much  the  reader  will  discover  for 
himself. 

They  gather  around  one  central  theme  —  the  Godward 
Side  of  Life  —  and  there  is  of  necessity  a  good  deal  of 
repetition.  All  that  has  been  left  with  little  alteration. 
The  theme  itself  is  commanding  enough  to  be  much 
dwelt  upon. 

Most  of  them  were  given  before  we  entered  the  war; 
one  or  two  before  the  war  began.  If  there  are  para- 
graphs which  the  duty  of  the  hour  seems  to  contradict 
they  have  been  left  in  the  author's  hope  and  confidence 
that  a  happier  future  will  bring  them  into  a  new  perspec- 
tive. They  seem  to  him  to  be  of  the  essence  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God. 

Finally,  no  one  is  more  conscious  of  how  much  these 
sermons  leave  to  seek  than  the  man  who  preached  them. 

The  Minister's  Study, 

The  First  Congregational  Church  in  Detroit, 
October  2d,  1917. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  The  Supreme  Service  of  Religion  1 

II  The  Practice  of  the  Presence  of  God  15 

III  The  God  ward  Side  of  Life  29 

IV  The  Great  Adventure  41 
V  The  Manifold  Kingship  of  Jesus  55 

VI  The  Winning  of  a  Soul  70 

VII  The  Tides  of  the  Spirit  83 

VIII  A  Good  Conscience  97 

IX  The  Pool  and  the  Conduit  HI 

X  The  Challenge  of  Christian  Idealism  126 

XI  Clouds  Without  Water  139 

XII  The  Unnoted  Loss  of  God  152 

XIII  Doers  of  the  Word  165 

XIV  Where  are  the  Dead?  179 


THE  GODWARD  SIDE  OF  LIFE 


I 

THE   SUPREME   SERVICE   OF   RELIGION 

"  Lift  up  your  eyes  on  high,  and  see  who  hath  created  these,  that  bringeth 
out  their  host  by  number;  he  calleth  them  all  by  name;  by  the  greatness  of  his 
might,  and  for  that  he  is  strong  in  power,  not  one  is  lacking.  Why  say  est  thou, 
0  Jacob,  and  speakest,  0  Israel,  My  way  is  hid  from  Jehovah,  and  the  justice 
due  to  me  is  passed  away  from  my  God?  Hast  thou  not  known?  Hast  thou 
not  heard?  The  everlasting  God,  Jehovah,  the  Creator  of  the  ends  of  the  earth, 
fainteth  not,  neither  is  weary;  there  is  no  searching  of  his  understanding.  He 
giveth  power  to  the  faint;  and  to  him  that  hath  no  might  he  increaseth  strength, 
even  the  youths  shall  faint  and  be  weary,  and  the  young  men  shall  utterly  fall; 
but  they  that  wait  for  Jehovah  shall  renew  their  strength;  they  shall  mount  up 
with  wings  as  eagles;  they  shall  run  and  not  be  weary;  they  shall  walk,  and  not 
faint." — Isaiah  40:  26-31 . 

This  great  passage  is  the  marching  song  of  a  people 
facing  a  great  task  and  needing  therefore  to  be  inspired 
greatly  and  heartened.  It  was  evident  to  the  clear- 
visioned  singer  that  the  exile  was  almost  over.  Israel 
was  on  the  eve  of  her  release.  Their  God  had  raised 
up  Cyrus,  who  was  breaking  the  empire  of  their  masters 
as  time  has  broken  the  clay  tablets  upon  which  the 
ancient  lords  of  Mesopotamia  wrote  the  stories  of  their 
terrible  victories.  The  gates  of  Babylon  were  to  be 
opened  and  the  Jew,  after  seventy  years,  was  to  go  out 
through  those  gates  and  seek  the  land  of  his  fathers. 
There  such  a  task  awaited  him  as  no  people  —  and 
especially  a  people  broken  in  spirit  and  wanting  in 
courage  —  could  easily  face.  A  ruined  city  was  to  be 
re-built,  low  fallen  walls  set  up  anew,  a  temple  whose 
glory  was  but  a  dim  memory  be  made  again  beautiful. 

1 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

Men  setting  out  on  such  an  errand  as  theirs  needed 
great  music  by  which  to  march.  So  God  sent  them  a 
prophet  singer.  He  sang  over  and  over  again  the  love 
and  the  goodness  of  God;  and  because  he  sang  so 
splendidly,  with  so  sure  a  passion,  with  so  heartening  a 
note,  because  his  music  has  such  faith  and  vision  at  the 
heart  of  it,  men  have  marched  to  the  joy  of  it  ever 
since.  The  city  which  the  returned  exiles  re-builded  has 
changed  its  masters  again  and  again;  its  sanctuaries  and 
its  leaders  are  only  a  memory,  but  the  marching  song 
of  a  nameless  prophet  has  been  humanity's  deathless 
music,  and  we  kindle  to  it  still  as  we  seek  the  city  of 
our  desire. 

I.  This  is  the  first  great  service  of  religion  to  life: 
it  gives  us  a  light  to  follow  and  music  by  which  to 
march.  We  need  a  great  faith  in  order  to  be  fruitful 
even  in  the  little  things  of  life.  Nothing  less  or  other 
than  religion  can  supply  this  faith,  this  inspiration. 
Israel  could  never  have  re-built  Jerusalem  without  Nehe- 
miah,  but  Israel  would  never  have  had  the  heart  even  to 
attempt  that  re-building  without  the  prophet  of  the 
exile.  They  also  serve  us  who  sing  to  us  the  marching 
songs  of  faith  and  adoration.  To  this  the  ancient  ex- 
periences of  an  exiled  people  bear  their  testimony,  and 
to  this  every  great  and  fruitful  accomplishment  of  men 
since  the  morning  of  time  bears  testimony.  Turn  as 
you  will  the  pages  of  history  and  tell  me  if  you  find  any 
record  of  continents  subdued,  or  civilizations  established, 
or  liberty  enthroned,  or  conscience  emancipated,  or 
states  made  free,  or  battles  nobly  fought,  or  burdens 
long  and  patiently  borne,  or  new  and  radiant  departures 
given  the  souls  of  men,  without  great  faith  in  God. 
Nay,  search  the  secret  places  of  your  own  lives;  re- 
hearse the  story  of  what  you  ha\"e  known  and  been  and 

2 


THE   SUPREME   SERVICE   OF  RELIGION 

borne;  seek  out  the  roots  of  your  patience,  the  hiding- 
place  of  your  self-denial;  find  out  for  yourselves  what 
has  kept  you  unstained  in  the  face  of  manifold  tempta- 
tions, or  made  it  possible  for  you  to  see  the  bow  of 
promise  through  your  tears,  and  find  if  ever  the  nobler 
and  better  moments  of  your  life  have  been  wanting  in  a 
faith  which  led  you  like  a  star,  or  from  persuasions 
which  came  to  you  as  far-off  music  comes  to  men  too 
weary,  as  they  think,  to  go  farther  until  they  hear  the 
strains  which  lift  them  from  their  dust. 

Now,  beyond  such  general  considerations  as  these  — 
the  consideration,  that  is,  that  the  greatest  things  in 
life  are  done  in  the  light  of  life's  greatest  visions,  that 
faith  can  never  be  sterile,  that  religion  must  help  us  in 
all  our  tasks  and  battles  —  beyond  all  this  there  are 
more  definite  considerations,  and  the  prophet  indicates 
them  one  by  one  in  the  verses  with  which  this  fortieth 
chapter  ends.  His  first  exhortation  is  strangely  unex- 
pected: "  Lift  up  your  eyes  on  high."  Here  is  the  first 
definite  service  of  religion:  it  calls  us  to  look  away  from 
all  those  things  which  too  much  oppress  and  blind  us, 
to  the  higher  sources  of  our  strength  and  peace.  We 
are  too  much  given  to  looking  down;  it  is  not  so  much 
the  burdens  we  bear  as  our  earthward  gaze  which  bows 
our  shoulders  and  our  souls  alike  —  we  look  down  for 
our  duties,  for  our  fellowships,  for  our  pleasures.  At 
best,  we  look  abroad,  but  we  find  it  so  hard  to  look  up. 
Our  downward  gaze  gives  cast  and  character  to  life  and 
occupation.  Salvation  begins  when  we  lift  up  our  eyes 
on  high. 

It  does  not  greatly  matter,  to  begin  with,  where  we 
look,  or  for  what  we  look,  if  we  will  only  lift  up  our 
eyes.  The  upward  gaze  has  its  own  suggestion  and  will, 
if  we  will  only  follow  its  revelations  home,  lead  us  from 

3 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

height  to  height  until  we  are  wholly  possessed  by  the 
sense  of  the  greatest  and  the  best  —  nay,  until  we  have 
found  our  resting  place  in  God.  There  is  a  text  whose 
finer  suggestion  we  lose  because  we  quote  it  for  the 
most  part  from  the  Authorized  Version:  "  I  will  lift  up 
mine  eyes  unto  the  hills  from  whence  cometh  my  help." 
No,  "  I  will  lift  up  mine  eyes  unto  the  hills,"  the 
Psalmist  really  said.  "  From  whence  cometh  mine 
help? "  Our  help  does  not  come  from  the  hills;  our 
help  cometh  from  the  Lord  which  made  heaven  and 
earth.  But  the  hills  are  his  altar-stairs,  and  if  we  lift 
up  our  eyes  to  their  purple  summits,  their  serenity  and 
brooding  strength  will  suggest  to  us  a  power  and  peace 
of  which  all  the  strength  of  all  the  hills  is  but  the 
broken  revelation.  If  we  lift  up  our  eyes  to  the  hills 
they  will  carry  us  to  the  clouds;  the  clouds  to  the  azure 
spaces  of  the  skies;  the  azure  spaces  of  the  skies  to  the 
stars;  the  stars  to  serene  immensities  of  changeless 
power,  and  serene  immensities  of  changeless  power  will 
carry  our  reverent  vision  to  the  very  presence  of  God. 

There  is  something  more  here  than  either  poetry  or 
rhetoric.  All  vast  and  brooding  things  are  the  thresholds 
of  the  Infinite,  the  threshold  of  the  places  of  the  presence 
of  God.  We  have  only  to  let  such  imagination,  emotions, 
revelations,  far-flung  flights  of  the  soul,  as  are  implicit 
in  every  upward  look  and  searching  vision,  have  their 
way.  They  will  lead  us,  if  we  follow  them,  to  the 
Divine.  That,  indeed,  was  exactly  the  thing  which  the 
prophet  meant  in  his  literal  employment  of  this  ex- 
hortation: "Lift  up  your  eyes  on  high,  and  see  who 
hath  created  these,  that  bringeth  out  their  host  by 
number;  he  calleth  them  all  by  name;  by  the  greatness 
of  his  might,  and  for  that  he  is  strong,  not  one  is 
lacking."     His  fellow  exiles  are  to  consider  the  testimony 

4 


THE   SUPREME   SERVICE   OF  RELIGION 

of  the  stars,  for  the  testimony  of  the  stars  is  the  testi- 
mony of  the  unchanging  power,  and  the  unclouded  good- 
ness of  God.  But  they  must  lift  up  their  eyes  to  begin 
with.  Otherwise  the  stars  have  no  messages  for  them 
and  all  the  comfort  of  the  most  ancient  heavens  is  in 
vain. 

This,  then,  is  the  first  thing  which  religion  asks  us  to 
do:  simply  to  look  up.  "  Lift  up  your  eyes  from  your 
ledgers  and  ask  yourselves  the  meaning  of  your  buying 
and  selling.  Try  your  gains  by  some  other  balance- 
sheet  than  figures  and  statistics;  test  your  gains  by 
character,  social  service,  the  happiness  of  little  children, 
the  strength  of  men,  the  stainlessness  of  womanhood. 
Seek  the  more  enduring  values,  let  them  have  their  way 
with  you.  "  Lift  up  your  eyes  "  from  your  merchandise 
and  ask  yourself  the  meaning  of  buying  and  selling. 
Let  all  their  finer  suggestions  lead  you  from  level  to 
level,  test  your  enterprises,  hallow  your  processes,  give 
you  new  vision  of  cloth  and  bread,  of  iron  and  wool. 
If  only  a  man  will  follow  all  the  higher  suggestions  of 
any  business  in  which  he  has  any  right  to  engage,  let 
those  suggestions  have  their  way  with  him,  seek  to  make 
all  his  business  operations  conform  to  ideals  and  impera- 
tives which  are  implicit  in  every  transaction,  he  will 
find  that  they  have  carried  him  into  regions  where  busi- 
ness is  a  sacrament  and  where  buying  and  selling  is  a 
part  of  the  communion  and  commerce  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God. 

"  Lift  up  your  eyes "  from  your  looms  and  forges. 
Let  them  sing  you  the  true  songs  of  labor.  Inquire  into 
the  meaning  of  their  hoarse  music.  Seek  to  relate  them 
on  the  one  side  to  the  men  and  women  who  stand  before 
them,  and  on  the  other  side  to  the  men  and  women  who 
are    served    by    their    output.      Study    the    moral    and 

5 


THE    GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

spiritual  by-products  of  your  business;  you  will  find  here 
also  undreamt-of  possibilities  indwelling  in  the  upward 
look.  It  is  because  we  have  seen  the  forge  and  the  loom 
alone,  unrelated  to  the  wider  needs  of  men,  that  too 
often  their  output  has  been  weariness,  despair,  and  social 
strife. 

"  Lift  up  your  eyes  "  from  your  pleasures.  Forget  the 
joys  which  lie  in  the  dust,  the  pleasures  which  belong 
to  the  lower  and  unworthy  sides  of  life.  Let  lasting 
pleasure  lead  you  to  deepening  happiness;  deepening 
happiness  to  abiding  joy;  abiding  joy  to  eternal  bless- 
ings. These  are  stairs  by  which  we  climb;  we  shall 
never  know  what  happiness  is  as  long  as  all  the  vision 
which  seeks  happiness  is  directed  earthward.  Happiness, 
like  every  other  gift,  cometh  down  from  above,  the 
gift  of  "  the  Father  of  lights,  with  whom  there  is  no  vari- 
ableness neither  shadow  of  turning." 

"  Lift  up  your  eyes  "  from  life  and  its  restlessness,  its 
occupations,  its  doubts  and  its  negations.  Let  the  needs 
of  your  soul  have  the  right  of  way.  Be  persuaded  that 
nothing  which  is  really  necessary  to  the  brave  and 
fruitful  conduct  of  life  can  ever  be  false  or  impossible. 
Test  your  logic  by  life,  not  life  by  logic.  In  every  region 
we  are  shutting  ourselves  away  from  our  real  inheritances 
because  we  will  not  look  beyond  the  thing  which  occu- 
pies our  foregrounds.  There  may  be  a  petty  logic  which 
finds  no  place  or  need  of  God,  denies  our  freedom,  re- 
duces us  to  the  level  of  the  machine,  affirms  our  pathetic 
helplessness  in  the  face  of  circumstances  and  inheritance, 
and  does  not  dare  to  claim  the  birthright  of  immortality. 
"  Lift  up  your  eyes  "  from  any  such  conclusions  as  these. 
Life  has  its  logic  as  the  soul  has  its  necessities.  We  will 
not  interpret  the  great  necessities  of  character  in  terms 
of  limitations  and  rigidities  which  are  the  children  of  our 

6 


THE   SUPREME   SERVICE   OF  RELIGION 

doubts  or  our  fears.  Heredity  and  environment  are  the 
ministers  of  life,  not  its  masters.  The  world  is  the  time- 
worn,  time-woven  vesture  of  God,  not  a  veil  which 
conceals  Him,  Death  itself  is  the  gate  of  life  and  not 
the  pathetic  and  all-consuming  terminus  of  life. 

"  Lift  up  your  eyes  on  high."  Religion  is  always 
calling  men  to  look  up.  Her  creeds,  her  forms  of  wor- 
ship, her  great  afhrmations,  her  unclouded  revelations 
are  every  one  of  them  a  summons  to  the  upward  gaze. 
If  only  men  would  stop  and  begin  to  look  up,  God  would 
in  the  end  have  His  way  with  them.  We  cannot  indeed 
keep  our  eyes  toward  the  skies  always;  we  should  be 
stumbling  and  going  blindly.  But  if  the  upward  look 
yields  the  vision  by  which  we  guide  ourselves,  the  reve- 
lation of  amplitudes  in  which  we  strengthen  and  con- 
sole ourselves,  we  shall  turn  again  to  all  our  tasks  with 
new  inspirations  and  build  through  our  endeavor  stairs 
which  climb  toward  God. 

II.  The  next  service  of  religion  is  the  correction  of 
our  hasty  judgments.  The  prophet  asks  the  people  who 
have  grown  weary  of  waiting,  who  feared  that  God 
would  never  set  them  free,  to  be  done  with  their  doubts 
and  their  complaints.  "  Why  sayest  thou,  O  Jacob,  and 
speakest,  O  Israel,  My  way  is  hid  from  Jehovah,  and  the 
justice  due  to  me  is  passed  away  from  my  God?  "  The 
Jews  had  been  saying  just  that.  Few  among  the  living 
could  even  have  remembered  their  fatherland.  It  lay 
like  a  dream  along  their  horizon;  their  hope  of  release 
had  been  so  long  deferred.  They  were  weary  and  sick 
of  waiting.  The  prophet  did  not  argue  with  them;  he 
simply  expostulated,  and  his  expostulation  is  his  song, 
"  Lift  up  your  eyes  ";  get  the  larger  vision;  try  to  get 
some  sure  sense  of  God's  processes;  remember  how 
short    your    days,    how    long  His    purposes;     how    small 

7 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

your  station,  how  vast  the  order  over  which  He  reigns 
and  through  which  He  operates;  and  then  be  done 
with  your  hasty  judgments. 

We  need  this  correction  of  hasty  judgments  and  un- 
founded fears  and  unjustified  doubts  as  much  as  these 
ancient  exiles.  Life  is  always  ingrowing.  We  narrow  it 
to  our  interests  and  our  own  operations.  We  see  only 
our  foregrounds;  then,  because  they  are  full  sometimes 
of  confusion  and  disaster,  we  cease  believing  in  order, 
joy  or  victory.  We  pronounce  ill-considered  judg- 
ments upon  life  and  the  world,  and  are  persuaded  in 
the  end  that  love  can  have  no  part  in  so  seemingly 
unhappy  a  situation,  and  wisdom  no  power  in  directing 
processes  so  blind,  so  inconsiderate.  Then  the  great 
affirmations  of  religion  come  into  action.  They  begin 
by  stripping  us  bare  of  our  egotism;  they  teach  us  that 
we  are  not  the  centres  of  even  our  own  world.  The 
sun  does  not  rise  and  set  within  the  boundaries  of  our 
own  fields.  It  does  us  good  to  have  our  dimensions  thus 
shrunk;  there  is  a  great  healing  in  the  sense  of  our  own 
littlenesses.  The  darkest  shadow  which  falls  across  our 
world  is  after  all  the  shadow  of  ourselves.  If  we  be- 
come properly  small  our  shadow  shrinks  in  measure;  if 
we  cast  all  our  care  upon  Him  we  are  highly  exalted, 
and  then  we  stand  as  men  stand  upon  the  uplands,  with 
amplitudes  of  light  everj^where  about  us,  our  own  shadow 
narrowed  to  a  point  at  our  feet  and  our  vision  lifted  to 
far-off  heartening  horizons  which  no  shadow  of  ourselves 
can  ever  darken  and  where  the  light  of  God  forever 
dwells. 

But  religion  does  a  great  deal  more  than  duly  to 
diminish  us  in  our  own  eyes  and  give  us  instead  the 
persuasion  of  an  infinite  Wisdom  reaching  through  un- 
counted operations   to  divine  consummations.     Religion 

8 


THE  SUPREME   SERVICE   OF  RELIGION 

assures  us  of  the  meaning  of  our  lives  to  God.  We  are 
not  lost  in  a  world  so  great,  or  forgotten  in  operations 
so  vast.  We  need  to  turn  to  the  New  Testament  for 
the  full  assurance  of  this.  The  Master  tells  us  that  not 
even  a  sparrow  falleth  to  the  ground  unnoted;  where- 
fore so  much  more  are  we  in  our  Father's  care.  Faith 
counsels  patience  and  patience  waits  upon  the  revelation 
of  the  love  of  God  in  life.  There  are  some  things  we 
can  never  understand  until  we  have  lived  them  through, 
and  only  as  we  have  lived  them  through  in  great  faith 
that  God  is  loving  and  good.  He  is  sending  us  to  school, 
there  is  a  meaning  even  in  our  disappointment  and  our 
exile.  We  are  not  forgotten  simply  because  the  thing 
we  want  is  not  immediately  given  to  us.  Time  and  time 
again  some  better  thing  is  given  to  us  and  through 
waiting  itself  we  are  made  strong.  The  long-continued 
exile  of  which  the  Jew  complained  was  really  the  making 
of  him.  We  should  never  have  had  the  fortieth  chapter 
of  Isaiah  had  the  exile  ended  before  it  had  done  its 
perfect  work.  In  such  fires  of  hope  adjourned  and 
weary  waiting  the  last  taint  of  idolatry  was  burned 
away.  What  Isaiah  and  Amos  and  Micah  could  never 
teach  a  people  who  would  not  heed  and  were  always 
forgetting,  the  exile  itself  taught  in  a  never-to-be-for- 
gotten way.  When  Israel  went  home  again  he  took 
with  him  from  the  plains  of  Mesopotamia  a  purified 
faith  which  crowned  all  the  long  beginnings  of  his  national 
life;  a  sense  of  God  never  again  to  be  clouded  or 
lost.  No,  God  does  not  forget  nor  does  His  justice 
fail. 

It  is  true  that  we  need  a  clear  vision  to  follow  His 
ways.  Our  conventional  tests  of  His  justice  are  often 
sadly  deficient.  He  does  not  adjudicate  life  in  terms  of 
honor  and  wealth  and  ease  and  lesser  well-being.     He 

9 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

deals  with  life  in  terms  of  life  —  character  is  the  last 
unfailing  record  of  the  justice  and  the  love  of  God  and 
here  His  judgments  are  true  and  righteous  altogether. 
Never  a  tear  falls  in  love  and  faith  which  does  not 
water  some  holy  growth  of  tenderness.  Strength  is  the 
wages  of  burdens  bravely  borne,  and  a  great  spiritual 
wealth,  unfailing  and  unperishable,  ripens  like  fruit  upon 
a  life  established  in  confidence  and  obedience  —  aye,  and 
in  searching  and  relentless  ways  God's  justice  has  its 
way  with  men.  When  all  the  lesser  laws  which  rule  the 
universe  have  failed,  the  laws  which  rule  the  soul  will 
reign  in  undiminished  authority  and  the  great  assize 
itself  will  be  but  the  revelation  of  all  the  ways  in  which 
the  soul,  true  or  false  to  God,  has  ripened  in  beauty  or 
withered,  seared  by  its  sins. 

III.  The  third  great  service  of  religion  —  as  the 
prophet  sings  his  heart  out  —  is  its  power  of  suggestion 
and  interpretation.  Religion  does  not  prove  God;  re- 
ligion discovers  Him.  He  is  not  beyond  proof;  at  least 
He  is  not  beyond  the  demonstration  of  cumulative  con- 
clusions more  certain  than  any  proof.  But  they  do  not 
belong  to  the  province  of  religion.  "  Hast  thou  not 
known?  hast  thou  not  heard?  "  "  Here,"  says  the 
prophet,  "  is  something  which  you  ought  to  know.  It 
is  part  of  the  commonplace  of  life,  a  great  light  which 
you  ought  to  see,  a  great  comfort  which  you  ought  to 
desire."  These  mighty  moving  verses  are  meant  to  recall 
men  to  God  by  suggesting  His  glory  and  His  power 
everywhere  resident  and  everywhere  evident.  We  are 
asked  to  consider  the  majesty  and  the  power  of  the 
heavenly  host,  the  shining  garmenture  of  the  sea  and 
the  serene  majesty  of  the  hills,  and  every  one  of  these 
things  is  to  be  to  us  the  sacramental  suggestion  of  a 
God  who  measures  the  waters  and  metes  out  the  heavens 

10 


THE   SUPREME   SERVICE   OF  RELIGION 

and  weighs  the  mountains  and  brings  out  the  host  of  the 
stars  by  number  and  by  name.  Every  one  of  these  is 
to  become  a  road  by  which  we  are  to  find  our  way  into 
the  very  presence  of  the  Eternal. 

"  Hast  thou  not  known?  hast  thou  not  heard?  "  All 
holy  fellowships,  all  pure  love,  all  great  comradeship, 
all  deep  tenderness,  all  the  light  above  the  years,  sound 
the  same  refrain,  whose  challenge  is  a  prophecy  and 
whose  grave  music  —  like  '  the  last  echo  born  of  a 
great  cry  '  —  is  pregnant  with  philosophies  and  religions. 
Duty  takes  up  the  chanted  challenge,  love  repeats  it, 
experience  urges  it  home,  the  seas  sing  it  as  they  break 
at  our  feet,  the  stars  repeat  it  from  their  stations  in  the 
skies;  it  is  the  refrain  of  joy  and  sorrow,  it  speaks  in 
the  shotted  guns  of  far-flung  battle  lines  and  becomes 
articulate  in  the  very  destinies  of  nations.  "  Hast  thou 
not  known?  hast  thou  not  heard?  "  If  religion  did 
nothing  more  than  ask  us  thus  to  listen,  halt  us  in  our 
restlessness  and  set  us  gravely  to  considering  the  meaning 
of  every  aspect  of  experience,  its  service  would  be  su- 
preme, for  so  it  would  call  us  back  to  God. 

But  still  the  song  goes  on:  "He  giveth  power  to  the 
faint;  and  to  him  that  hath  no  might  he  increaseth 
strength."  All  that  has  gone  before  would  be  idle 
mockery  without  this  last  assurance.  Of  what  avail  is 
it  to  lift  up  our  eyes  to  the  hills,  or  to  let  our  vision  be 
carried  far,  far  beyond  them,  if  no  help  can  come  to  us 
froril  that  one  in  whom  our  vision  finally  rests?  Of 
what  avail  is  the  sacramental  suggestion  of  the  presence 
of  God,  if  His  presence  is  not  our  peace;  the  suggestion 
of  His  power,  if  His  power  is  not  our  re-enforcement? 
Nay,  He  is  at  our  service.  "  He  giveth  power  to  the 
faint;  he  change th  our  strength."  This  is  no  mere  rapt 
assurance    of     the    mystic    and    the    prophet.     All    the 

11 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

ministers  of  strength  are  the  ministers  of  God.  He  in- 
creaseth  strength  in  every  mouthful  of  bread  which  He 
gives  to  the  hungry;  in  every  draught  of  water  which 
earth-born  springs  offer  to  the  weary.  "  He  giveth 
power  to  the  faint "  in  the  might  of  falHng  waters,  in  the 
stored  treasures  of  forests  and  mines,  in  the  swift  wonder 
of  electricity,  in  the  pregnant  combinations  of  chemical 
forces.  Edison  is  said  while  crossing  the  ocean  to  have 
paced  the  deck,  crying  out  against  the  woeful  waste  of 
the  power  of  the  waves  and  of  the  tides.  We  shall 
harness  them  some  day  and  make  them  serve  our  pur- 
pose and  our  comfort;  but  when  we  have  made  them 
our  ministers  they  will  be  nothing  other  than  God  giving 
power  to  the  faint  through  the  impact  of  waters  nursed 
into  might  by  the  winds,  and  the  tides,  which  are 
nothing  other  than  the  imponderable  attractions  of  the 
sun  and  moon  and  stars  harnessed  to  the  ponderable 
mass  of  the  seas. 

"  He  giveth  power  to  the  faint  "  in  the  great  spiritual 
conclusions  by  which  men  are  sustained,  in  every  noble 
endeavor,  in  love,  in  the  sense  of  duty,  in  devotion, 
consecration,  in  the  martyr's  passion,  the  patriot's  fire 
and  the  ardor  of  the  saint.  "  He  giveth  power  to  the 
faint  "  in  great  assurances,  of  the  sure  triumph  of  all 
righteousness  and  the  worth  of  every  unselfish  effort. 
"  He  giveth  power  to  the  faint  "  in  mystic  communions 
which  clarify  our  judgments,  purify  our  love,  re-create  our 
souls.  Yes,  "  He  giveth  power  to  the  faint;  and  to 
him  that  hath  no  might  He  increase th  strength";  — 
"  changeth  "  strength  is  the  literal  word. 

We  have  grown  used  to  exchanging  our  strength;  we 
excha,nge  the  strength  of  our  hands  for  the  power  of 
the  trip-hammer,  smiting  with  the  impact  of  a  hundred 
tons.     We  exchange  the  strength  of  our  halting  feet  for 

12 


THE  SUPREME  SERVICE  OF  RELIGION 

the  swiftness  of  monster  engines.  We  exchange  the 
strength  of  our  eyes  for  the  penetrating  vision  of  the 
telescope  which  reveals  the  invisible.  We  exchange  our 
halting  voices  for  the  space-defying  service  of  the  electri- 
cal current.  We  exchange  our  individual  strength  for 
the  cooperative  power  of  cities,  commonwealths,  and 
nations.  Why  should  we  not  change  our  strength  by  the 
appropriation  of  the  strength  of  God?  All  these  lesser 
things  are  His  ministers;  why  should  we  not  deal 
directly  with  their  Master?  Why  should  we  be  so  eager 
to  avail  ourselves  of  an  atom  of  His  energy  when  the 
source  of  it  all  is  at  our  service,  or  content  ourselves 
with  the  "  hem  of  His  garment  "  when  we  might  be 
transformed  by  the  light  of  His  glory  in  the  face  of 
Jesus  Christ?  "  Cast  your  burdens  on  the  Lord,  for 
He  careth  for  you."  Be  done  with  all  the  fret  and  weari- 
ness of  insistent  and  uncomforted  lives.  In  love,  obedi- 
ence, faith,  appropriation,  prayer,  mystic  communion, 
yield  yourselves  to  the  Everlasting  Arms.  Let  the  joy 
and  the  power  of  it  become  more  real  to  you  than  the 
rising  or  setting  suns;  for  the  strength  of  the  Lord  is 
the  secret  of  our  joy. 

Here,  then,  is  the  culmination  of  the  service  of  religion 
to  life;  it  re-creates,  re-enforces  and  transforms.  All 
lesser  strengths  presently  fail  us.  "  Even  the  youths 
shall  faint  and  be  weary,  and  the  young  men  shall 
utterly  fall."  The  inadequacy  of  human  strength  in 
its  most  abundant  and  seemingly  inexhaustible  form  is 
God's  opportunity.  It  is  because  we  faint  without  God 
that  with  Him  we  "  shall  mount  up  with  wings  as  eagles. 
We  shall  run,  and  not  be  weary."  The  swift  progress  of 
our  plans  shall  carry  us  tirelessly  if  we  rest  in  Him. 
"  We  shall  walk  and  not  faint  ";  we  shall  be  equal  to  the 
hard  road,  to  the  task  which  demands  endless  patience, 

13 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

to  the  ascent  which  has  to  be  climbed  step  by  staggering 
step,  while  we  pant  for  breath.  Those  to  whom  God 
has  become  ..real  shall  find  in  Him  the  secret  of  all 
endurance  and  conquest.  The  final  service  of  religion 
to  life  is  the  gift  of  the  capacity  really  to  live. 


14 


II 

THE  PRACTICE  OF  THE  PRESENCE  OF  GOD 

"  The  eternal  God  is  thy  dwelling-place. 
And  underneath  are  the  everlasting  armsJ' 

— Deuteronomy  33  :  27a. 

Such  words  as  these  are  at  once  our  comfort  and  our 
despair.  Our  comfort  because  they  testify  to  a  sus- 
taining and  encompassing  love  which  will  leave  us 
neither  lonely  nor  defenceless.  Our  despair  because  they 
breathe  a  vast  and  comforting  assurance  we  no  longer 
fully  share. 

In  faith's  far  morning  God  was  nearer,  more  con- 
ceivable than  now.  Then  the  thunder  was  His  voice, 
the  pestilence  upon  occasion  His  sword.  He  fought  on 
the  side  of  His  friends;  He  gave  or  withheld  rain;  He 
clothed  the  tops  of  lonely  mountains  with  the  blinding 
glory  of  His  presence,  and  the  greatest  of  His  servants 
spoke  face  to  face  with  Him  as  a  man  speaketh  with  his 
friend.  He  led  His  marching  hosts  with  pillars  of  light 
or  sheltered  them  from  their  pursuing  foes  by  moving 
screens  of  clouds.  Surely  we,  from  whom  God  seems  so 
far  withdrawn,  may  well  envy  those  to  whom  He  was 
always  so  near.  We  have  lost  the  secret  of  the  simple 
faith  of  an  elder  time;  we  have  not  yet  resolved  the 
emerging  conceptions  of  mighty  dominancies,  and  far- 
flung  laws,  and  immensities  of  space  and  time,  which 
control  our  thought  and  imagination,  into  a  new  sense 
of  the  presence  of  God,  a  new  consciousness  of  a  Father's 
care.     Like  Job  we  cry: 

15 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

"  Oh,  that  I  knew  where  I  might  find  him! 
That  I  might  come  even  to  his  seat! 
*      *      1(1      «      * 

Behold  I  go  forward,  but  he  is  not  there; 
And  backward,  but  I  cannot  perceive  him;  " 

We  stand  between  two  worlds;  one  dead,  the  other,  not 
indeed  powerless  to  be  born,  but  strangely  slow  in  its 
gestation.  But  by  the  very  measure  that  task  is  the 
more  difficult  it  is  the  more  inspiring.  We  have  spaces 
of  knowledge  and  experience  waiting  to  be  flooded  with 
that  sense  of  God  which  has  been  from  of  old  the 
courage  of  the  warrior,  the  wisdom  of  the  lawgiver,  the 
lyric  confidence  of  the  prophet  and  the  mystic's  inner 
joy,  compared  with  which  the  little  God-filled  channels 
of  that  old  Hebrew  faith  are  as  an  estuary  to  the  sea 
itself,  spaces  which  wait  only  for  the  turning  of  the  tide 
to  be  gathered,  and  forever,  into  the  bosom  of  the 
illimitable  deep. 

For,  beyond  debate,  the  sense  of  the  presence  of  God 
has  so  long  been  an  ebbing  tide  that  all  the  coasts  of 
life  are  left  bare  of  wonder  and  mystery.  The  thunder 
is  no  longer  the  voice  of  God  but  the  detonation  of 
air  cloven  by  the  lightning's  rush;  the  pestilence  is  no 
longer  the  sword  of  the  Most  High,  unsheathed  in  wrath 
and  put  up  again  in  answer  to  the  prayer  of  agonizing 
nations.  The  clouds  have  long  ceased  to  be  the  shadow 
of  the  hand  of  God;  the  children  they  of  sea-born  vapors 
and  earth-born  winds.  Realm  by  realm,  law  has  had  its 
way  and  widened  its  empire  and  always,  we  have  been 
blind  enough  or  foolish  enough  to  begin  to  think  —  at  the 
cost  of  the  presence  of  God.  What  place  for  Him  in  a 
world  whose  sequences  are  inevitable  and  whose  activities 
are  but  the  manifestation  of  combinations  of  forces 
which  afford,  from  start  to  finish,  not  even  so  much  as 
a   crevice   for   any   intrusion   of   an   outer   force?     And 

16 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  THE  PRESENCE  OF  GOD 

because  we  could  not  see  any  place  for  God  save  in  gaps 
and  crevices  we  have  offered  Him  no  better  doors  than 
the  doors  of  our  ignorance.  "  Surely,"  we  have  said, 
"  since  we  do  not  know  the  origins  of  matter,  God  may 
come  in  by  that  door,  and  since  we  do  not  know  the 
genesis  of  life,  God  may  come  in  by  that  door,  and  since 
we  do  not  know  the  beginnings  of  consciousness,  we  have 
still  need  of  Him."  But  such  assurances  as  these  have 
brought  us  no  real  comfort.  We  are  always  in  a  panic 
lest  some  new  knowledge  should  confound  our  faith,  and 
we  have  feared  the  light-bringers  until  we  persuaded  our- 
selves, and  alas,  persuaded  them  also,  that  they  were  the 
foes  of  the  Most  High. 

We  are  coming  to  see  quite  clearly  that  all  these  are 
unwise  and  even  desperate  expedients.  If  God  is  at  the 
mercy  of  our  ignorance,  if  He  is  at  best  to  be  called  in 
when  everything  else  breaks  down,  the  Everlasting  Arms 
can  have  no  real  meaning  for  us.  Our  sense  of  the 
presence  of  God  must  be  re-established  not  in  gaps  and 
ignorances  and  regions  as  yet  unconquered  by  knowledge, 
but  rather  in  the  whole  kindling  joy  of  what  we  know, 
in  our  ever  widening  sense  of  the  dominance  of  law  and 
the  unhindered  march  of  increasing  and  indwelling 
powers.  Here  we  shall  find  ourselves  the  true  comrades 
of  those  who  knew  Him  first.  They  found  Him  in  the 
whole  body  of  their  experience,  knew  Him  in  their  world 
and  its  activities,  established  Him  in  their  whole  full 
understanding  of  life  and  truth.  Directly  we  begin  to 
find  God  in  the  light  rather  than  the  shadow,  in  our 
knowledge  rather  than  our  ignorance,  in  spacious  and 
truth-lit  ordered  realms,  we  begin  to  discover  how  rich 
we  really  are  and  how  we  may  well  take  upon  our  lips 
in  wonder  and  adoration  the  ancient  words  of  the  wrestling 
Jacob:  "  Surely  God  was  in  this  place,  and  I  knew  it  not." 

17 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

We  are  like  men  lost  in  a  country  which  they  have 
always  known;  the  fogs  which  have  hidden  from  us  the 
familiar  landmarks  of  the  soul  are  mists  of  light  and  not 
darkness.  Now  as  they  begin  not  so  much  to  clear  as 
to  be  resolved  by  a  more  penetrating  vision,  the  familiar 
summits  of  hills  long  known  and  loved,  but  for  a  little 
lost,  begin  to  show  themselves  anew.  The  eternal  God 
is  still  our  refuge  and  the  Everlasting  Arms  are  nearer 
than  before.  We  should  have  known  it  long  ago.  The 
poets  and  prophets  of  science  have  been  crying  it  all 
abroad  for  two  full  generations.  The  scientists  them- 
selves have  been  the  ministers  —  not  the  foes  —  of  the 
Most  High,  laboratories  have  been  holy  places  and  the 
very  conclusions  of  which  we  have  been  most  afraid 
have  been  successive  revelations  of  the  upholding  and 
undergirding  arms.  Our  chemists  and  physicists  have 
been  road-makers  for  the  King.  Beneath  their  touch 
wonder  and  mystery  have  been  reborn,  matter  has 
melted  into  force,  and  force  been  joined  to  force.  With 
the  turning  of  this  vaster  tide  our  little  separate  and 
desolate  pools  of  unrelated  knowledge  have  been  married 
by  inflooding  waters  whose  salt  freshness  has  transformed 
them,  and  whose  deepening  wideness  has  swallowed  them 
up. 

And  now  that  sea  —  the  sea  of  an  immanent  force  — 
laps  us  with  its  mystic  tides.  "  Not  a  leaf  rots  by  the 
wayside  without  force  in  it.  How  else  could  it  rot?  " 
Suns  and  stars  are  children  of  a  common  mother  whose 
cosmic  travail  is  made  manifest  in  swirling  nebulae  and 
whose  eonian  children  die  but  to  be  reborn.  "  Detached, 
separated?  I  say  there  is  no  such  separation:  nothing 
hitherto  was  ever  stranded,  cast  aside;  but  all,  were  it 
only  a  withered  leaf,  works  together  with  all;  is  borne 
forward   on   the   bottomless,   shoreless   flood   of  Action." 

18 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  THE  PRESENCE  OF  GOD 

The  scientist  has  his  own  wise  names  for  all  this  —  he 
calls  it  the  conservation  of  energy  and  the  unity  of 
force  —  but  we  know  that  it  is  God  come  near  to  us. 
The  suggestion  of  His  presence  breaks  at  our  feet  in 
every  wave  of  the  sea  of  power.  He  comes  closer  still 
in  the  sea  of  being.  He  gathers  us  to  Himself  again 
upon  the  ampler  tides  of  truth;  He  possesses  us  in  love 
and  meets  our  need  in  self-revelations  of  sacrifice  and 
establishes  the  cross  upon  our  sky-line.  By  roads  down 
which  we  thought  to  have  dismissed  it  faith  returns  into 

power, 

"  And  mind  and  soul  according  well 
Do  make  one  music  as  before,  . 

But  vaster." 

I.  Here  then  is  the  first  condition  of  the  practice  of 
the  presence  of  God:  the  exercise  of  reverence  and  in- 
sight in  dealing  with  the  reports  of  science  and  the 
widening  empire  of  truth.  True  this  is  only  the  begin- 
ning, it  has  neither  warmth,  nor  intimacy,  nor  personal 
content  enough  to  satisfy  our  more  personal  spiritual 
need,  but  it  is  at  least  a  point  of  departure.  Nay,  more 
than  that,  it  is  a  governing  condition.  We  are  under 
bonds  to  accept  whatever  account  of  our  world  and  its 
operations,  and  of  ourselves  and  our  genesis,  is  finally 
established;  and  we  are  under  bonds  to  find  in  it  all 
the  upholding  of  the  Everlasting  Arms.  They  are  there! 
They  are  there!  And  if  our  sense  of  them  is  wanting 
the  fault  is  not  in  the  God  who  is  striving  to  teach  us 
in  uncounted  ways  how  near  and  loving  He  is,  but  in 
the  dimness  of  our  souls. 

We  are  equally  under  bonds  to  the  same  insight  in 
our  thought  about  conduct,  our  definitions  of  goodness. 
The  Everlasting  Arms  are  extended,  not  only  in  brooding 
intimacies  of  force,  but  in  the  laws  and  restraints  of  duty. 

19 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

Goodness  has  never  been  anything  else  than  the  revela- 
tion of  the  mind  of  God  about  the  deeds  of  men,  and 
though  the  laws  of  right  and  wrong  be  shaped  in  the 
legislation  of  experience  they  are  none  the  less  the  laws 
of  God. 

Here  as  everywhere  else  we  are  offered  a  more  intimate 
and  heartening  revelation;  here  as  everywhere  else  God 
has  not  withdrawn:  He  has  come  closer.  Matthew 
Arnold,  putting  into  a  single  sentence  the  verdict  of 
battlefields  and  chambers  of  debate,  the  triumph  of 
dominant  causes,  the  rise  and  fall  of  nations,  and  the 
final  and  inclusive  meaning  of  an  age-old  strife,  has  told 
us  there  is  a  "  Power  not  ourselves,  making  for  righteous- 
ness." It  is  God,  fighting  as  of  old  the  battles  of  good- 
ness, sustaining  and  re-enforcing  His  soldiers,  crowding 
the  hills  with  his  horses  and  chariots  for  the  succor  of 
the  beleaguered.  Aye,  commanding  the  sun  to  stand 
still  upon  Gibeon  and  the  moon  in  the  valley  of  Ajalon 
till  the  day  is  won. 

"  Mine  eyes  have  seen  the  glory  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord; 
He  is  trampling  out  the  vintage  where  the  grapes  of  wrath  are  stored; 
He  hath  loosed  the  fateful  lightning  of  His  terrible  swift  sword, 
His  truth  is  marching  on," 

Further  still,  the  practice  of  the  presence  of  God  de- 
mands the  same  confident  acceptance  of  whatever  is 
likely  to  be  solidly  established  as  to  the  genesis  of 
religion  itself.  Without  doubt  religion  began  very  simply, 
to  be  perfected  in  experience,  purified  by  discipline,  re- 
stated in  terms  of  ascending  knowledge,  recast  in  purer 
consecrations,  reborn  in  holier  devotions,  and  constantly 
widening  itself  in  synchrony  with  our  widening  capacities 
to  receive  and  understand.  But  it  is  none  the  less 
religion.  Its  holy  books  are  still  holy  though  we  trace 
them    to    their    sources    and    strive    to    untangle    their 

20 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  THE  PRESENCE  OF  GOD 

mingled  web  of  truth  and  misconception.  Its  altars  are 
still  sacred  though  we  discern  in  what  temper  the  earliest 
altar  fires  were  kindled  and  how  their  cruel  smoke  ob- 
scured the  God  they  sought  to  please.  Its  hymns  of 
worship  still  breathe  our  wonder  and  our  adorations, 
though  the  first  hymns  were  the  rude  chanting  of  super- 
stition and  the  grave  and  noble  music  of  our  organs  was 
fathered  in  the  wild  beating  of  cymbals  and  the  strange 
frenzies  of  an  elder  time. 

We  increasingly  recognize  that  there  have  been  many 
roads  into  our  Father's  presence,  we  no  longer  scorn  the 
prayers  of  the  ignorant  and  untaught,  we  see  in  our  own 
Christianity  but  the  full  revelation  of  Him  whom  so 
many  have  ignorantly  worshipped.  But  all  this  does 
not  take  away  from  us  our  sense  of  God;  it  should 
rather  fill  us  with  a  great  wonder  at  that  infinite  patience 
which  has  availed  itself  of  the  needs  and  sorrows  and 
wonder  of  men  from  the  morning  of  time,  brooded  over 
the  belated,  the  ignorant,  the  untaught  and  the  mistaken, 
seized  every  opportunity  to  help  us  better  to  under- 
stand, and  left  no  man  ever  or  anywhere  without  some 
witness  of  itself. 

We  are  to  discern  the  undergirding  arms  in  our  own 
souls  in  action.  All  this  new  wonder  of  psychology  which 
is  interesting  us  so  much  has  this  distinct  message, 
renders  this  distinct  service:  it  helps  us  to  understand 
God;  it  suggests  the  doors  by  which  He  enters  life. 
Prayer,  conversion,  the  new  birth  have  had  a  place 
made  for  them  in  the  classrooms  of  the  universities. 
The  spirit  still  bloweth  where  He  listeth  but  we  are 
beginning  to  see  that  He  also  has  His  laws.  There  are 
gates  of  divine  invasion  which  have  never  been  closed, 
ways  of  communion  which  have  never  been  stopped.  We 
are  being  taught  anew  the  way  in  which  spirit  with  spirit 

21 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF   LIFE 

can  meet.  Begbie's  stories  of  "Twice  Born  Men  "  bring 
new  meaning  to  an  old  interview  on  a  housetop  at  mid- 
night. It  is  increasingly  evident  that  there  are  stores  of 
spiritual  strength  upon  which  we  have  drawn  all  too 
scantily  and  which  are  unspeakably  potent  in  rehabilita- 
tions and  empowerment  in  every  region  of  life.  This  is 
the  truth  at  the  heart  of  the  superficialities  and  inver- 
acities of  Christian  Science;  this  the  gleam  of  true  light 
through  all  the  fogs  of  new  thought.  What  is  it  all? 
It  is  God  offering  Himself  in  the  mystic  wonder  of  the 
inner  life.  Our  laws  are  His  thought,  and  every  sug- 
gestion of  fuller  strength  or  richer  personality  is  but  the 
disclosure  of  the  Everlasting  Arms. 

Then  there  are  the  circumstances  of  life,  especially  its 
more  difficult  and  trying  experiences.  The  atheism  which 
empties  life  of  any  gladdening  sense  of  commerce  with 
the  Divine  and  sterilizes  all  our  nobler  endeavor  is  very 
much  more  likely  to  be  rooted  in  our  doubt  of  God's 
loving  and  personal  dealing  with  us  than  in  any  doubt 
of  his  vaster  manifestations.  It  is  hard  enough  to  look 
out  upon  a  world  whose  order  is  so  unchanging  and 
whose  regnant  forces  seem  so  far  removed  from  any 
intimation  of  the  truly  spiritual  and  there  to  discover 
the  intimations  of  a  Divine  Presence,  but  it  is  harder 
still  to  look  sorrow  in  the  face  and  see  God  behind  that 
gray  cowl,  to  walk  hand  in  hand  with  pain  and  be 
humbly  sensible  of  a  Father's  leading  or  through  the 
numbing  wearinesses  of  life  to  apprehend  a  care  which 
sees  to  it  that  not  even  a  sparrow  falls  to  the  earth  in 
vain.  Here  if  anywhere  we  are  likely  to  fail,  here  indeed 
the  most  of  us  do  fail.  How  shall  we  discover  the 
Everlasting  Arms  in  unfulfilled  hopes  and  fruitless  desires, 
and  in  the  petty  outcome  of  great  expectations,  in  sorrow 
and  misery,   and  loss  and  death?      Only  as  we  discern 

22 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  THE  PRESENCE  OF  GOD 

them  elsewhere:  by  the  search,  that  is,  for  their  deeper 
meanings,  in  a  quest  conducted  by  an  unfaiHng  trust 
which  accepts  whatever  comes,  persuaded  that  even 
though  for  the  time  we  may  not  understand  its  meanings 
it  is  nevertheless  some  part  of  the  divine  revelation, 
some  accent  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

There  is  no  sense  of  God  like  that  which  is  thus 
attained.  Those  who  have  won  their  faith  in  a  conflict 
with  doubt,  or  their  trust  in  a  hand  to  hand  strife  with 
challenging  circumstances,  or  their  serenity  in  the  shock 
of  battle,  are  not  likely  thereafter  to  be  disturbed.  It  is 
not  easy  to  do  this,  indeed  there  is  no  promise  anywhere 
that  a  great  sense  of  the  presence  of  God  may  easily  be 
attained.  Such  communion  is  the  noblest  achievement 
of  the  soul,  to  be  won  only  at  the  cost  of  sore  spiritual 
travail.  The  saints  and  the  mystics  have  always  known 
something  of  this  toil  of  the  soul.  Their  glowing  assur- 
ances have  always  been  born  out  of  the  depths;  the 
professions  of  trust  which  they  fling  up  into  the  light 
are  simply  the  last  radiant  expression  of  disciplines  and 
gropings  which,  though  they  lightly  dismiss  them,  are 
never  lightly  endured.  And  though  we  may  take  their 
great  assurances  for  our  own  points  of  departure,  or 
better  still  for  the  goals  for  which  we  strive,  we  shall 
never  make  them  ours  in  any  real  and  abiding  fashion 
until  we  have  shared  the  experiences  out  of  which  they 
were  spoken. 

II.  The  second  open  secret  of  the  practice  of  the 
presence  of  God  is  obedience.  First  trust  and  insight, 
next  the  demonstration  of  obedience.  "  Then  shall  ye 
know,"  says  the  prophet,  "  if  ye  follow  on  to  know  the 
Lord."  Except  the  one  thing  to  which  we  shall  presently 
come,  nothing  is  more  difficult,  more  daring  than  this. 
To  claim  lonely  spaces  as  the  chambers  of  a   Father's 

23 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

house,  to  answer  gladly  "  I  will "  to  change  and  accident, 
to  bare  life's  hidden  places  to  the  seemingly  unrespon- 
sive, to  clothe  all  conduct  with  the  aspect  of  obedience, 
to  offer  the  whole  of  life  as  a  reverent  and  willing 
response  to  a  love  and  care  which  often  clothe  them- 
selves so  strangely,  this  is  the  greatest  thing  of  which  we 
are  capable;   it  is  life's  great  adventure. 

Nor  is  it  ever  fruitless.  We  do  not  long  continue  to 
act  as  if  our  lonely  lives  had  a  meaning  for  God  without 
the  certainty  of  an  accompanying  and  controlling  Father- 
hood rising  like  an  ample  dawn  to  fill  all  our  lives  with 
warmth  and  light.  I  do  not  know  words  which  are 
either  great  or  strong  enough  to  say  all  this  as  it  ought 
to  be  said,  the  proof  of  it  is  not  in  the  words  but  in  the 
verification  of  experience.  When  we  begin  to  live  as  if 
our  world  was  God's  world,  we  discover  His  presence 
everywhere.  When  we  begin  to  serve  as  if  all  noble 
deeds  were  our  response  to  Him,  a  great  certainty  of 
unfailing  personal  relationships  is  borne  in  upon  us  like 
a  tide;  when  we  begin  to  accept  whatever  comes  to  us 
as  having  a  great  and  personally  considered  meaning, 
then  life  becomes  love's  discipline  and  wisdom's  revelation. 

The  life  and  temper  of  Jesus  Christ  are  the  supreme 
illustration  of  all  this.  His  world  was  not  to  the  eye 
of  sense  in  any  fashion  other  than  our  world,  yet  from 
first  to  last  he  went  through  it  as  one  who  passes  from 
room  to  room  in  his  Father's  house.  The  mountain 
sides  were  places  of  intimate  spiritual  communion,  angelic 
presences  sought  him  out  and  ministered  to  him  in  the 
desert.  He  saw  the  love  of  God  made  beautiful  in  the 
lily,  manifest  in  grasses  which  blossomed  but  to  die, 
concerned  with  the  sparrow's  flight  or  the  fall  of  a 
wounded  bird.  He  filled  every  attitude,  act  or  utterance 
with  glowing  trust,  brave  obedience  and  unfailing  filial 

24 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  THE  PRESENCE  OF  GOD 

self-commitment.  He  took  the  cup  of  bitter  necessity 
as  from  the  hand  of  love  and  spake  abroad  the  assur- 
ances of  a  Father's  unfailing  kindness  from  the  agony 
of  the  Cross.  We  need  to  be  baptised  anew  in  the 
wonder  of  such  a  life  as  that.  The  conversations  of 
Jesus  Christ  from  the  Cross  —  "Father,  forgive  them," 
"  Father,  receive  me  "  —  represent  a  self-commitment 
so  divine  as  to  have  made  them  forever  the  supreme 
revelation  of  the  divine  in  this  little  world  of  ours. 
Even  the  contemptuous  speech  of  those  who  suffered 
with  him,  the  hate  of  those  who  nailed  him  to  the  Tree, 
the  desolation  of  the  scene  on  the  hill  and  the  pathos 
of  an  unpitying  earth  and  sky  are  forgotten,  and  from 
that  hill  Jesus  Christ  spoke  face  to  face  with  all  that 
brought  him  there,  not  even  as  a  man  speaks  to  his 
friend  but  as  a  son  speaks  to  his  father.  And  it  was 
real,  supremely  real.  If  there  is  anywhere  any  sin- 
cerity in  speech,  any  certainty  in  testimonies  offered 
under  circumstances  where  every  certainty  might  seem 
to  fail,  it  is  that  the  Father  with  whom  Jesus  Christ 
spoke  was  no  delusion  of  a  Galilean  peasant,  but  the 
one  encompassing  reality  to  the  certainty  of  which  the 
whole  glad,  unquestioning,  conquering  temper  of  his 
soul  is  his  supreme  testimony. 

He  shared  his  certainty  with  all  the  world;  he  taught 
doubting  lips  to  speak  the  same  great  words  and  halting 
lives  to  assume  the  same  great  attitudes.  Those  whom 
he  taught  dwelt  as  he  dwelt  in  a  world  transformed,  and 
walked  as  he  walked  in  an  intimate  and  brooding  sense 
of  a  Father's  love  which  made  God  more  real  than  all 
else  beside  and  communion  with  him  their  constant 
spiritual  exercise.  For  (thirdly)  communion  is  the  last 
step  in  the  practice  in  the  presence  of  God  and  sets  the 
seal  of  validity  upon  the  whole  process. 

25 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

III.  All  life  is,  in  a  very  true  way,  communion;  we 
live  in  a  web  of  relationships;  every  aspect  of  our  life 
is  a  sharing.  Breathing  is  communion  with  the  healing 
tides  of  the  air.  Sight  is  communion  with  light-born 
pictures  and  revelations.  Hearing  is  communion  with 
sound,  action  is  communion  with  uncounted  forces  and 
necessities.  Thought  is  communion  with  truth,  con- 
science is  communion  with  duty,  love  is  communion 
with  personality.  From  first  to  last,  from  the  simplest 
reflex  actions  of  the  newborn  child  to  the  policies  of  the 
statesman,  the  proclamations  of  the  prophet,  the  radiant 
devotions  of  the  saint,  the  meditations  of  the  philosopher, 
the  holy  intimacies  of  love,  all  life  is  communion,  — 
nothing  is  real  to  us  save  as  it  enters  into  our  lives,  is 
there  reborn,  and  so  issues  in  a  new  reality  which  is 
neither  wholly  ourselves  nor  that  with  which  we  are  in 
communion,  but  which  is  wholly  communion  itself.  So 
with  the  practice  of  the  presence  of  God.  It  is  an  act 
of  communion  which  begins  in  simple  and  seemingly 
remote  ways.  All  communion  with  love  or  truth  or 
duty  or  beauty  or  any  kind  of  power  is  communion  with 
God. 

But  though  the  practice  of  the  presence  of  God  may 
begin  in  such  ways  as  these  it  must  transcend  them. 
Any  communion  which  makes  God  real  to  us  must  at 
last  lift  itself  to  high  levels  of  conscious  spiritual  inter- 
course with  Him.  Such  levels  are  dangerously  near  the 
frontiers  of  mysticism  and  upon  their  uplands  it  is  easy 
to  lose  oneself  in  the  mists  which  blow  down  from  the 
hills  of  God,  but  if  mysticism  be  nothing  other  than  the 
mystic's  certain  persuasion  of  the  meaning  of  God  to 
his  own  life,  then  I  for  one  do  not  see  how  the  practice 
of  the  presence  of  God  can  possibly  stop  short  of  mysti- 
cal attitudes  and  tempers.     It  does  not  need   to  begin 

26 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  THE  PRESENCE  OF  GOD 

there,  nor  do  we  all  need  to  travel  the  same  road  or 
find  our  certainty  of  God  in  the  same  states  and  tem- 
pers. As  there  are  many  gates  into  the  heavenly  city, 
so  there  are  many  ways  of  knowing  God  and  filling  life 
with  known  realities  of  spiritual  intercourse.  But  in 
any  case  God  has  become  real  to  us  when  thought  or 
action  or  warmth  of  emotion  or  steadfastness  of  purpose, 
patience,  hope,  gentleness  and  joy  are  in  any  wise 
created  or  increased  because  we  do  cast  ourselves  upon 
the  Everlasting  Arms  or  seek  shelter  in  His  unchanging 
refuge.  And  when  such  spiritual  states,  like  inland  wells 
joined  by  hidden  channels  to  the  sea,  rise  and  fall,  as 
our  certainty  of  God  ebbs  and  flows,  and  when  finally 
all  this  has  risen  to  the  height  of  conscious  purpose  and 
has  become  one  aspect  —  and  in  the  end  it  must  be  the 
central  aspect  —  of  our  administration  of  our  lives,  then 
the  whole  of  life  is  the  demonstration  of  His  presence 
and  our  repetitions  of  the  hallowed  words  of  the  text  is 
no  idle  echo  but  the  creative  testimony  of  all  that  is 
within  us. 

So  the  practice  of  the  presence  of  God  beginning  in 
insight  and  continuing  in  obedience  issues  finally  in 
immediate  certainties  which  do  not  admit  contradiction. 
The  final  certainty  of  the  divine  presence  must  be  in 
our  own  experiences.  What  knowledge  we  have  of  earth 
and  stars,  of  truth  and  goodness  comes  back  to  this  at 
last.  We  risk  everything  upon  an  experience  which 
works,  which  makes  life  intelligible,  fruitful,  possible. 

The  sense  of  God  is  like  that.  It  makes  life  fruitful, 
intelligible,  possible;  it  bears  whatever  weight  we  put 
upon  it,  it  fills  us  with  its  glorifying  light,  it  holds  us 
fast  to  our  tasks  and  dismisses  us  to  our  visions.  It 
leads  us  through  goodness  to  power  and  through  dis- 
cipline to  peace.     Without  it  life  is  a  puzzle  and  with  it 

27 


THE  GODWARD  SIDE  OF  LIFE 

life  is  a  revelation.  It  binds  men  together  in  noble 
comradeships  and  has  supplied  the  hidden  bases  upon 
which  all  that  in  whose  shelter  we  have  been  secure,  or 
in  whose  beauty  we  have  been  made  glad,  is  established. 
Surely  we  may  doubt  all  else  before  we  doubt  the  truth 
of  such  assurances  as  these.  The  eternal  God  is  our 
refuge,  and  underneath  are  the  everlasting  arms. 


28 


Ill 

THE  GODWARD  SIDE  OF  LIFE 

"  Be  thou  for  the  people  to  Godward."  —  Exodus  18 :  19. 

The  verse  itself  is  part  of  an  old  and  fascinating  story. 
Moses  is  met  in  the  desert,  and  at  the  very  beginning 
of  his  long  tutelage  of  the  Hebrew  people  by  his  father- 
in-law,  Jethro,  the  Priest  of  Midian.  Jethro  finds  Moses 
cumbered  with  much  serving,  lost  in  detail,  and  en- 
deavoring himself  to  administer  all  the  concerns  of  all 
the  people.  With  a  wisdom  which  has  in  it  a  strangely 
modern  note,  Jethro  tells  Moses  that  he  is  in  the  way 
of  wearing  out  both  himself  and  the  people,  that  he  must 
distribute  responsibility,  secure  helpers  and  subordinates, 
assign  to  them  the  small  and  passing  matters,  and  re- 
serve for  himself  the  supreme  and  lonely  place,  the 
supreme  and  initiative  service.  "  Be  thou,"  he  says, 
"  for  the  people  to  Godward." 

There  is,  then,  to  begin  with,  a  Godward  side  to  life; 
not  a  mere  point,  nor  a  line,  nor  a  restricted  area,  but 
a  whole  frontier,  a  vast  and  undefined  direction,  an 
immeasurably  rich  and  suggestive  frontage.  The  very 
heart-word  of  the  text  itself  has  its  tremendous  sug- 
gestion, Godward!  How  it  carries  with  it  the  very 
suggestion  of  our  freer  forms  of  speech.  It  has  in  it  the 
salt  tang  of  the  sea,  the  spaciousness  of  the  desert,  the 
habits  of  men  who  look  much  to  broad  horizons,  who 
strive  to  anticipate  the  quarter  from  which  the  wind 
will  blow,  and  who  bound  themselves  by  nothing  less 
than  the  cardinal  points  of  the  compass,  whose  frontiers 

29 


THE  GOD  WARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

are  eastward  and  westward,  northward  and  southward. 
Here  is  a  word  which  is  big  enough  for  all  the  reverent 
play  of  our  free  spirits,  and  yet  a  word  which  constantly 
leads  our  thought,  our  vision  and  our  desire,  in  one 
great  and  inclusive  direction,  Godward. 

There  is  a  Godward  side  to  all  thinking.  When  we 
have  done  with  all  that  the  laboratories  have  to  tell  us, 
when  we  have  wrung  their  secret  from  the  stars,  when 
we  have  sought  out  the  constant  and  ordered  relations 
of  things,  we  are  none  the  less  face  to  face  with  brood- 
ing mysteries  which  find  but  one  solution,  God.  No 
matter  whether  you  think  with  the  subtlety  of  the 
philosopher,  who  demands  his  absolute  as  the  first 
condition  of  any  thought  at  all,  or  with  the  dramatic 
quality  of  a  Napoleon  who  points  out  the  Egyptian 
stars  and  demands  their  maker,  or  with  the  homely 
sense  of  the  plain  man  who  wants  to  know  where  things 
came  from  and  why  they  are  what  they  are,  all  thought 
has  its  upper  and  its  Godward  side.  It  at  once  sug- 
gests and  demands  the  divine;  it  leads  us  into  holy 
presences  and  sets  us  face  to  face  with  mysteries  which 
we  cannot  solve  without  God. 

There  is  a  Godward  side  in  all  conduct.  When  you 
have  set  duty  upon  her  thrones  of  austere  administra- 
tion, when  you  have  given  conscience  a  clear  right  of 
way,  when  you  have  yielded  yourself  to  all  moral  im- 
peratives, have  drawn  with  the  utmost  clearness  the 
profound  distinction  between  right  and  wrong,  when 
you  have  sought  the  genesis  of  moral  distinctions  and 
have  come  back  dizzy  from  those  depths  paved  with 
abysmal  shadows,  out  of  which  they  lift  themselves,  you 
are  helpless  and  perplexed  without  God.  Conscience, 
duty,  morality,  all  have  their  Godward  side;  they  lead 
us  into  His  presence  by  sure  and  uncscapable  roads,  they 

30 


THE   GODWARD    SIDE   OF  LIFE 

demand  God  for  the  explanation  of  their  authority,  as 
we  need  God  for  strength  to  obey  and  serve  them. 

There  is  a  Godward  side  to  all  love  and  desire, 
and  the  rich  interplay  of  the  emotional  life. 
There  is  nothing  for  love  to  draw  from,  there  is 
nothing  for  love  to  draw  toward,  if  love  does  not  flow 
as  the  tides  from  the  sea  out  of  the  bosom  of  God,  and 
if  love  does  not  return  as  the  tides  to  the  sea  back  to 
the  bosom  of  God.  We  need  God  for  spiritual  kinship. 
Without  Him  we  are  too  lonely  for  words;  if  He  is  not 
our  Father,  then  we  are  orphans;  and  if  He  is  not  our 
Peace,  we  shall  be  forever  restless.  All  that  which  lifts 
us  above  ourselves  and  moves  us  beyond  ourselves  is  an 
intimation  that  the  deeper  you  go  into  life  or  the  higher 
above  it,  the  more  clearly  does  its  Godward  aspect 
emerge,  and  the  lonelier  are  our  spiritual  horizons  if 
God  does  not  fill  them.  Men  feel  this  who  never  put 
it  in  words;  those  who  have  never  heard  of  St.  Augus- 
tine nevertheless  bear  their  own  testimony  to  the 
veracity  of  his  utterance,  "  O  God,  Thou  hast  made  us 
for  Thyself,  and  we  are  restless  till  we  rest  in  Thee." 

And  because  a  man  is  a  good  deal  more  than  just  a 
combination  of  knowing  and  feeling  and  willing,  there  is 
a  Godward  side  to  the  whole  of  life- — restless,  red-blooded,  , 
perplexed,  dramatic  in  its  capacities  and  incapacities,) 
working,  loving,  fighting,  serving,  wandering,  falling, 
rising.  And  because  men  do  not  live  alone,  but  live  in 
fellowships,  and  because  these  fellowships  are  just  the 
interwoven,  interwrought  and  intensified  lives  of  indi- 
viduals, there  is  a  Godward  side  to  homes  and  country- 
sides, villages  and  cities,  states  and  nations,  parlia- 
ments and  federations  of  mankind;  and  because  men  are 
doing  a  thousand  things,  there  is  a  Godward  side  to 
business  and  commerce,  and  buying  and  selling,  reaping 

31 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

and  sowing,  and  politics  and  administration,  and  diplo- 
macy, and  the  contact  of  nations;  nay,  more,  with  the 
enlargement  and  intensification  of  life  the  Godward 
coasts  extend  themselves,  the  Godward  frontiers  become 
still  more  vast,  the  Godward  horizons  brood  beyond  us 
with  added  depth  and  mystery,  the  place  which  God  is 
to  have  in  life  is  immeasurably  extended,  and  the  need 
of  God  in  life  unspeakably  greater. 

For  it  does  not  always  follow  that  the  Godward  side 
of  life  has  God  in  it  —  consciously,  that  is.  It  may  be 
empty  as  the  sky  without  a  cloud,  or  the  sea  without  a 
sail;  men  may  live  and  die  with  the  Godward  side  of 
their  lives  unsatisfied  and  unblest,  its  possibilities  un- 
realized, and  its  connections  unmade.  Our  lives  are 
like  cities,  they  have  within  and  about  them  the  sug- 
gestion of  relationships  and  possibilities  beyond  the 
horizon.  Every  great  modern  city  suggests,  in  the  very 
machinery  of  its  life,  other  cities,  other  lands  and  other 
coasts.  The  railroad  lines  which  go  out  as  spokes  from 
their  hub  are  gleaming  lines  of  invitation,  meaningless 
without  other  stations,  and  waiting  human  fellowships. 
The  wires  which  fill  the  air  weave  a  mystic  web,  sug- 
gesting swift  and  silent  communication  where,  although 
their  voice  is  not  heard,  their  line  is  none  the  less  gone 
out  through  all  the  earth  and  their  words  to  the  end  of 
the  world.  The  piers  and  wharves  have  the  mystery  of 
the  sea  and  the  coming  and  going  of  ships;  while  every 
mast  of  wireless  telegraphy  adds  mystery  to  mystery, 
and  suggests  a  speech  which  has  made  the  secret  vibra- 
tions of  the  unseen  its  winged  messengers. 

Suppose  all  these  lines  of  communication  were  broken, 
that  the  railroad  lines  end  in  unpopulated  fields,  that 
broken  wires  dangle  idly  in  the  air,  that  no  commerce 
comes  or   goes  from  the  wharves,   and  that  no  arriving 

32 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

or  departing  waves  leave  their  record  in  the  stations  of 
wireless  telegraphy.  How  pathetic,  how  meaningless, 
how  impotent,  how  contradictory,  would  be  the  life  of 
such  a  city.  Some  men  live  like  that.  Life  has  for 
them  its  Godward  side,  but  that  side  is  empty;  its 
lines  of  possible  communication,  but  they  are  broken  or 
unutilized;  its  stations  of  communication  with  the  un- 
seen and  eternal,  but  for  them  there  is  no  commerce 
with  the  divine;  all  the  shores  of  their  souls  are  un- 
speakably lonely. 

If  all  this  is  to  be  changed  there  must  be  on  the  God- 
ward  side  of  us  men  who  help  us  to  come  to  God  and 
who  help  —  I  use  the  word  reverently  enough  —  and 
who  help  God  to  come  to  us.  There  are  from  time  to 
time  daring  and  open  and  lonely  souls  who  press  to  the 
very  limit  of  the  Godward  horizons  of  life,  and  there  in 
the  great  silences,  just  where  earth  gives  over  and 
Heaven  begins,  stand  alone  with  God;  or  upon  some 
mountain  top,  whence  all  their  fellows  are  withdrawn, 
speak  to  Him  face  to  face  as  a  man  speaketh  with  his 
friend.  How  few  they  are  who  have  done  or  can  do  this, 
you,  yourselves,  can  tell  by  trying  to  name  them. 

There  are  a  more  numerous  fellowship  who,  like  Aaron 
and  the  seventy  elders  of  Israel,  worship  afar  off;  they 
indeed  come  to  the  foot  of  the  mountain  of  divine  i 
revelation,  but  they  do  not  climb  its  sides  nor  dwell  upon  i 
its  summits;  they  are  dependent  only  upon  the  first 
and  greatest  of  teachers;  they  are  almost  spiritually  self- 
sufficient,  and  although  they  would  never  find  God  un- 
helped,  they  are  not  largely  dependent  upon  other  men 
for  the  wealth  and  peace  of  their  spiritual  lives.  But 
the  most  of  us  need  constant  human  fellowship  in  the 
regions  of  the  spiritual;  we  must  be  led  to  God  by  those 
who  are  close  to  us,  and  sustained  in  His  presence  by 

33 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

our  friends.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that,  once  having 
found  the  road,  there  is  not  any  one  of  us  who  may  not 
come  close  to  God,  but  I  do  mean  to  say  that  the  great 
majority  of  men  cannot  worship  in  lonehness  nor  find 
God  without  human  suggestion  and  guidance.  Here, 
then,  is  one  of  the  great  tasks  and  great  opportunities 
of  us  all.  We,  who  by  His  grace  have  some  vision  of 
God,  though  clouded,  any  certainty  of  his  presence, 
though  sometimes  interrupted,  any  conception  of  the 
worth  and  necessity  of  the  spiritual,  have  one  out- 
standing task;  we  are  to  live  on  the  Godward  side  of 
men. 

We  must,  indeed,  live  either  to  the  one  side  or  to 
the  other  of  our  fellows;  if  we  are  not  on  their  God- 
ward  side,  then  we  are  on  that  side  whose  ways  take 
hold  on  death.  We  must  suggest  to  all  those  whom  we 
meet,  either  the  higher  or  the  lower,  the  stained  or  the 
stainless,  the  temporal  or  the  eternal.  We  have  no 
option,  and  it  is  well  for  us  to  look  this  thing  directly 
in  the  face.  To  be  on  the  Godward  side  of  men  is  at 
once  the  joy  and  the  power  of  life;  to  know  that 
through  us,  and  the  suggestions  of  our  lives,  other  men 
are  coming  closer  and  closer  to  the  divine  and  climbing 
toward  the  light,  is  to  surprise,  as  we  may  hope  to  sur- 
prise nowhere  else  and  in  no  other  fashion,  the  very 
secret  of  Jesus.  Here,  then,  is  the  supreme  opportunity 
and  the  supreme  task  of  all  good  soldiers  of  Jesus  Christ. 

For  there  is  sore  need  today  that  the  Godward  side 
of  life  should  be  filled  with  new  meaning  and  power. 
There  is  an  increasing  paganization  of  society  which 
should  sober  us  all.  I  do  not  believe,  thank  God,  that 
this  holds  true  in  the  world  of  thought.  There  the 
spiritual  tide  is  mounting  with  the  days,  but  in  the 
realm  of  conduct  it  does  hold   true.     Every  year  more 

34 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

men  are  working  six  days  in  the  week,  without  any  real  \ 
spiritual  sanction  for  their  work,  and  spending  the  \ 
seventh  without  either  worship,  prayer  or  praise.  Along 
with  all  this  has  gone  an  increasing  passion  for  humanity, 
an  increasing  clamor  for  corporate  righteousness  and 
civic  goodness,  a  statistical  increase  of  church  member- 
ship, and  a  great  increase  of  activity  on  the  part  of 
church  organizations:  but  underneath  it  all  there  is  an 
increasing  divorce  of  the  moralities,  the  decencies,  the 
conventionalities  and  even  the  idealities  of  society  from 
the  life  of  the  spirit  and  the  fellowship  of  God.  It  is 
because  this  is  so,  that  so  much  which  we  do  is  futile. 
Our  endeavor  after  corporate  and  civic  righteousness  is 
like  Penelope's  web;  that  which  we  weave  in  the  light  | 
is  unraveled  in  the  darkness;  what  we  build  is  sapped  ' 
and  mined.  The  travail  of  our  spirits  is  out  of  all  pro- 
portion to  that  which  is  born  thereof,  and  the  funda- 
mental and  far-reaching  restlessness  of  society  is  almost 
without  explanation,  if  not  that  men  are  trying  to  make 
over  the  world  without  that  hold  upon  God  which  gives 
them  a  shelter  in  time  of  storm,  a  rock  of  defence,  and 
the  one  reenforcing  power  which  never  knows  defeat. 
For  multitudes  of  men  the  Godward  horizons  of  life  are 
empty  or  occupied  only  by  dissolving  creeds  and  fleeting 
associations;  they  must  be  filled  again,  and  before 
they  are  full  of  the  divine  they  must  be  full  of  the 
divine  suggestion  of  the  human.  To  every  one  of  us, 
cumbered  with  many  things,  and  tangled  in  our  coil  of 
organization,  there  comes,  as  the  voice  of  God,  the 
clear  word  of  Jethro,  the  Priest  of  Midian,  "  Get  ye  to 
the  Godward  side  of  this  people." 

We  are  to  get  to  the  Godward  side  of  politics;    there  | 
are  men  enough  on  the  other  side.     The  Godward  side 
is  neither  Republican  nor  Democratic,  Insurgent  or  Con- 

35 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

servative;  the  Godward  side  of  politics  is  the  side  of 
clear  vision,  unselfish  devotion  to  the  common  good,  a 
willingness  to  be  used  by  the  State  rather  than  to  use 
the  State;  a  thoroughgoing  detachment  from  the  con- 
ception of  legislation  as  a  direct  or  indirect  means  for 
personal  exploitation;  it  is  the  side  of  a  willingness  to 
bear  much,  to  hope  much,  to  battle,  to  be  misunder- 
stood, to  look  up  into  the  clear  light  of  the  ideal,  to  be 
faithful  in  small  duties,  willingly  to  accept  great  re- 
sponsibilities and  to  declare  a  war  without  a  peace 
against  the  corrupt,  the  stained,  the  foolish  and  the 
false. 

We  are  to  get  to  the  Godward  side  of  the  conduct  of 
business.  The  Godward  side  of  business  is  sheer  honesty, 
elemental  justice,  fine  dependableness,  a  full  day's  work, 
painstaking  economy,  and  the  sense  of  all  that  business 
means,  not  only  in  making  products  but  in  making  men. 
They  are  on  the  Godward  side  of  business  who  see  that 
business  is  not  only  a  private  occupation  but  a  public 
trust,  that  business  is  a  social  service,  that  rightly  con- 
ceived it  may  become  sacramental,  and  that  rightly 
administered  it  may  teach  men  in  holy  sacrifice  and  self- 
denial,  the  very  secret  of  the  pain  and  power  of  the 
Cross  of  Jesus  Christ. 

We  are  to  get  on  the  Godward  side  of  men  in  just 
plain  practical  living;  we  are  to  keep  the  spirit  upper- 
most, restrain,  if  need  be,  colorless  moral  qualities,  for 
our  brother's  sake;  if  need  be,  do  without  some  things 
which  do  not  hurt  us,  in  order  that  he  may  be  helped; 
withdraw  our  patronage  from  the  booths  of  Vanity 
Fair  and  so  live  that  all  those  market-places  which  the 
world,  the  flesh  and  the  devil  have  set  up  for  the  sale 
of  doubtful  and  stained  commodities  may  be  starved 
out  of  business. 

36 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

We  are  to  get  on  the  Godward  side  of  men  in  wor- 
ship and  the  fellowships  of  religion.  Men  will  not  come 
into  our  churches  unless  other  men  are  their  doors  of 
entrance,  nor  will  they  stay  there  if  there  are  not  other 
men  in  the  pews.  Boys  will  not  stay  in  the  Sunday 
school  if  they  do  not  see  their  fathers  thereabouts. 
There  is  grave  need  that  men,  otherwise  unblamable  in 
life,  should  here  seriously  consider  what  they  are  doing 
and  what  they  are  leaving  undone.  I  know  more  than 
one  family  where  the  grandfather  was  beyond  praise, 
faithful  and  devout  in  all  church  ministrations,  where 
the  grandson  never  darkens  a  church  door,  and  where 
the  real  fault  rests  with  the  father,  who  has  allowed  his 
pleasures  or  his  preoccupation,  or  the  growing  grossness 
of  his  spirit,  to  interrupt  the  one  true  and  imperative 
apostolic  succession  through  which  the  Holy  Catholic 
Church  always  has  been  and  always  must  be  consti- 
tuted, the  consecration  of  the  son  by  the  father  to  those 
obligations  and  responsibilities  of  spiritual  service  which 
will  never  give  over  until  the  church  militant  has  become 
the  church  triumphant. 

We  are  to  get  to  the  Godward  side  of  men  in  the 
spiritual,  the  mystic,  and  all  that  realm  of  personal 
relationship  with  God  so  difficult  to  define  in  words,  so 
clearly  known  in  experience,  so  rich  in  consequence,  so 
imperatively  necessary.  Here  we  deal  with  men  rather 
by  the  intimations  of  our  lives  than  by  those  things 
which  we  more  directly  say.  We  are  reticent,  it  is  not 
easy  for  us  to  speak  one  to  the  other  of  the  deep  things 
of  our  spirits,  but  none  the  less  men  will  always  note 
whether  or  not  we  have  been  with  God;  what  our  words 
do  not  say,  our  accent  will  suggest;  and  what  our  acts 
do  not  directly  declare,  the  very  intimations  of  our 
personality  will  make  evident.     One  life  was  the  creed 

37 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF   LIFE 

of  creeds,  and  all  those  who  follow  Christ  are  the 
articles  perpetually  rewritten  of  that  creed.  If  we  get 
to  the  Godward  side  of  men  in  our  brooding  desires,  in 
our  secret  imaginations,  in  our  hidden  fellowships,  in 
ultimate  and  unspeakable  sanctities,  we  shall  fill  their 
very  horizons  with  the  certified  assurance  of  spiritual 
reality,  and  above  us  there  will  rise,  as  the  coming  of 
the  morning,  a  sense  of  God  so  evident  that  all  the 
earth  and  sky  will  be  full  of  Him,  and  men  will  doubt 
the  dawn  which  fills  their  eyes  before  they  doubt  the 
dawn  which  fills  their  spirits. 

We  are  to  do  all  this  in  brotherhood.  It  is  given  only 
to  Moses  and  his  kind  to  dwell  alone  with  God.  The 
brooding  loneliness  of  his  story,  from  the  burning  bush 
on  the  back  side  of  the  Midian  desert  to  the  lonely 
death  and  the  grave  undug  of  human  hands  on  Nebo's 
summit,  is  an  atmosphere  too  rare  for  us  to  breathe. 
We  need  to  work  and  walk  with  others,  and  by  the 
grace  of  God,  revelations  of  Him  become  possible  in 
comradeship  and  fellowship  which  are  impossible  for 
us  one  by  one.  Comradeship  is  God's  chiefest  channel; 
when  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  people  stand  together, 
there  God  finds  His  opportunity,  and  we  who  would  be 
crushed  if  we  mediated  alone  between  the  divine  and 
the  human,  find  joy  and  rapture  in  mediating  fellow- 
ships. A  lonely  mediation  was  the  heaviest  burden, 
even  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  I  wonder  if  his  cry  of  lonely 
despair,  "  My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken 
me!  "  was  not  wrung  from  his  heart  and  his  lips  be- 
cause he  hung  alone  on  the  last  sky-line  between  the 
human  and  divine,  in  his  unshared  and  unsharable  task 
of  supreme  and  sacrificial  mediation  between  God  and 
man. 

And  yet  I  would  not  forget  that  we  cannot  live  with 

38 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

God  in  brotherhood  with  others  unless  we  have  our 
own  lonely  communion  with  him.  If  we  are  to  live  on 
the  Godward  side  of  men  in  saving  and  victorious  com- 
radeship, we  are  to  live  on  the  Godward  side  of  men  in 
the  lonely  and  intimate  fellowships  of  our  own  spirits. 
The  closer  we  come  to  God,  the  more  deeply  shall  we 
mediate  between  Him  and  His  children.  The  man  who 
is  farthest  from  God  has  all  humanity  between  him  and 
his  Father.  The  man  who  is  nearest  God  is  to  the 
Godward  side  of  all  men.  As  we  establish  more  and 
more  intimately,  in  thought  and  action  and  desire,  widen- 
ing points  of  contact  between  ourselves  and  God,  as 
more  and  more  like  Jacob  we  find  Him  where  we  did 
not  dream  He  dwelt,  as  more  and  more  prayer  becomes 
a  great  and  power-producing  discipline  of  the  soul,  and  holy 
meditations  kindle  holy  fires,  as  more  and  more  our 
senses  of  value  are  clarified  and  the  sources  of  strength 
are  made  plain  —  as  all  this  is  done,  we  shall  come  more 
and  more  to  the  Godward  side  of  men,  and  build  living 
ways  between  the  sons  and  daughters  of  God  and  the 
light  of  their  Father's  house  and  the  joy  of  their  Father's 
presence. 

Finally,  the  nearer  we  come  to  Christ  the  more  nearly 
the  whole  range  of  our  lives  will  be  to  the  Godward. 
He  is  the  Way,  and  the  Truth,  and  the  Life.  Through 
him  God  comes  close  to  us  that  we  may  draw  near  to 
God.  It  needs  the  wisdom  of  the  philosopher  to  find 
God  in  the  great  interpretations  of  thought  and  experi- 
ence, it  needs  the  passion  of  the  prophet  to  find  God 
in  the  tumultuous  tides  of  human  history,  it  needs  the 
sensitiveness  of  the  mystic  to  find  Him  in  the  lonely 
sanctuary  of  the  soul,  it  needs  the  singing  insight  of  the 
poet  to  find  Him  in  stars  and  flowers  and  changing 
seasons  —  but  all  simple  human  need  may  find  God  in 

39 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

Christ.  And  as  we  draw  near  to  him  we  come  through 
the  power  of  Christian  discipleship  into  a  divine  com- 
munion which  joins  us  to  God  as  the  tides  of  the  sea  to 
their  coasts.  As  we  serve  and  follow  him  we  make 
God  real  to  a  needy  world  and  offer  to  all  who  approach 
us  the  mediation  of  an  holy  love  and  wisdom  and  good- 
ness. For  our  own  sake  and  our  world's  sake  let  us 
thus  turn  God  ward.  We  are  in  the  midst  of  strife  and 
we  are  hard  beset.  We  shall  find  our  reenforcement, 
not  as  of  old  in  the  horses  and  chariots  of  God  made 
visible  to  doubting  eyes  on  the  encompassing  hills;  if 
we  are  to  win  the  battle  we  want  men  to  the  Godward 
side  of  us.  For  the  day  of  our  deliverance  will  have 
come  when  those  in  the  thick  of  the  fight  and  fearful, 
lifting  up  suddenly  opened  eyes,  shall  see  all  those  sides 
of  life  between  them  and  God  full  of  men  and  women 
through  whom  the  assurance  of  the  continuing  power  of 
God  shall  come  like  the  morning,  and  with  whom,  like 
the  company  of  the  shining  ones  who  came  down  to 
meet  Christian,  they  shall  go  up  singing  through  the 
gates  into  the  City. 


40 


IV 
THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

"  Ye  have  compassed  this  mountain  long  enough:  turn  you  northward." 
—  Deuteronomy  2  : 3. 

The  historians  of  Israel  made  of  the  wanderings  of 
their  ancestors  an  epic  rich  in  the  remembered  goodness 
of  God.  They  marked  every  stage  of  that  journey  by 
some  divine  command  or  prohibition,  and  filled  the  very 
skies  beneath  which  their  fathers  marched,  or  fought,  or 
camped  with  the  brooding  light  —  or  shadow  —  of 
Jehovah's  presence.  They  discovered  in  every  wayside 
spring  the  mercy  of  the  God  of  the  deserts  and  so 
interpreted  the  experiences  of  wandering  tribes  in  terms 
of  divine  shelter  and  discipline  that  we,  who  have  been 
nurtured  upon  this  august  and  kindling  record,  instinc- 
tively make  it  a  symbol  of  our  own  wanderings  and 
find  therein  much  which  guides  and  heartens  us  as  we 
also  make  our  journeys  from  some  land  of  bondage  to 
the  land  of  promise. 

Well,  then,  these  comrades  of  the  morning  of  faith 
had  halted  in  their  desert  journeyings  at  Mt.  Seir.  This 
is  not  so  much  a  mountain  as  an  upland  region  at  the 
head  of  the  Gulf  of  Akabah,  half  way  up  the  eastern  side 
of  that  strange  triangle  of  burning  sun  and  barren  sand 
and  volcanic  rock  through  which  for  so  many  years  the 
ancestors  of  the  Hebrew  people  took  their  wandering 
way.  It  is  really  a  kind  of  borderland  between  the 
utter  desolation  of  the  desert  and  the  more  fertile 
countries  to  the  north.      It  would    mean  much  for  any 

41 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

people  with  flocks  and  herds  who  had  been  long  in  the 
waterless,  grassless,  burning  regions  further  south,  to 
come  into  a  countryside  whose  upland  spaces  gave  them 
a  breath  of  coolness  for  themselves  and  pasture  for  their 
flocks;  compared  with  what  they  had  been  through, 
that  was  promised  land  enough  for  them.  So  between 
their  own  weariness  and  the  allurement  of  the  land  they 
did  exactly  what  we  are  all  prone  to  do.  They  made  a 
stage  in  life's  journey  the  end  of  the  journey,  and  began 
to  turn  what  was  meant  to  be  only  a  halt  into  an  habi- 
tation. Then  God  spake  to  them:  "Ye  have  compassed 
this  mountain  long  enough:  turn  you  to  the  northward. 
Your  journeying  is  not  yet  done  nor  your  mission  ac- 
complished. You  are  pilgrims  through  this  country, 
not  sojourners;  get  you  on  your  way."  They  heard  the 
voice  and  obeyed  it  and  came  in  the  end,  after  much 
wandering  and  fighting,  across  Jordan  itself  and  into 
Canaan. 

The  dust  of  the  years  is  deep  across  it  all,  but  the 
significance  of  it  all  is  beyond  debate.  We  hardly  know 
who  they  were,  these  Hebrews  of  three  thousand  years 
ago,  whose  migrations  brought  them  at  last  by  way  of 
the  east  across  Jordan  and  into  the  upland  country 
which  lies  between  the  valley  of  Jordan  and  the  Medi- 
terranean; but  we  do  know,  humanly  speaking,  that  had 
they  not  followed  whatever  led  them  on,  refusing  to 
rest  until  they  had  come  into  the  land  of  their  hearts' 
desire,  we  should  never  have  had  Jerusalem  nor  Bethle- 
hem nor  Nazareth,  nor  our  Bible,  nor  our  faith.  God 
works  through  long,  mysterious  processes.  We  this 
morning  belong  by  spiritual  descent  to  those  who  so 
long  ago  came  down  from  the  slopes  of  Mt.  Seir  and 
set  their  faces  toward  the  north. 

There  is  in  the  text,  moreover,  a  rich  suggestion  for 

42 


THE   GREAT  ADVENTURE 

us  all.  We  too  are  pilgrims:  life  will  not  let  us  rest. 
We  may  call  our  pilgrimage  what  we  will  —  growth,  or 
development,  or  work,  or  love,  or  life  itself;  but  we  are 
always  going  somewhere.  The  very  years  themselves 
will  not  let  us  be.  If  we  are  going  nowhere  else  we  are 
going  from  youth  through  maturity  to  age,  and  from 
age  to  what  lies  beyond  the  shadow.  Nothing  is  static. 
Change  is  one  of  the  laws  of  God;  and  surely  what  we 
are  in  the  end  most  concerned  about  is  to  make  the 
journey  bravely  and  not  to  fail  of  some  worthy  des- 
tination. Each  region  of  life  is  always  calHng  us  to 
some  larger  thing  which  lies  beyond.  You  are  never 
satisfied  with  your  business.  You  feel  instinctively  that 
each  year  must  somehow  show  an  advance  over  the  year 
before.  My  business  friends  sometimes  explain  to  me 
just  why  this  must  be  so,  and  how  a  business  which  is 
not  gaining  is  really  losing.  I  must  confess  that  I  can- 
not always  see  their  logic,  but  I  understand  their  spirit. 
For  they  too  are  pilgrims  and  find  the  deeper  joy  of 
business  administration  in  the  sense  of  going  on.  What 
they  are  most  concerned  about  is  not  so  much  the 
financial  outcome  —  although  they  are  not  likely  to 
underestimate  the  importance  of  that  —  as  somehow  the 
attainment  of  a  growing  efficiency.  Their  promised  land 
is  always  before  them. 

Your  scholars  have  the  same  instinct;  they  are  not 
happy  unless  they  are  always  widening  the  domain  of 
their  knowledge,  making  some  new  excursion  into  the 
undiscovered  country  and  securing  for  truth  a  nobler 
sovereignty.  Those  who  seek  perfected  character  are 
also  pilgrims.  They  are  never  content  with  the  measure 
of  goodness  they  have  attained.  There  is  always  before 
them  some  height  as  yet  ungained  of  integrity  and  obedi- 
ence, calling  them  as  from  afar  and  sometimes  scourg- 

43 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

ing  their  very  souls  with  the  unhappy  knowledge  of 
what  they  are  and  the  flaming  ideal  of  what  they  ought 
to  be. 

And  yet,  over  against  all  this  there  is  the  wholly 
human  temptation  to  halt  by  the  way  —  and  even 
through  sheer  weariness  or  contentment  with  some  lesser 
good,  miss  the  goal.  No  one  who  knows  his  own  heart 
wonders  at  this;  for  after  all,  any  journey  is  a  wearying 
thing  and  the  journey  of  life  itself  the  most  wearisome 
of  all.  It  is  easy  enough  to  talk  about  ideals;  it  is 
tremendously  hard  to  live  up  to  them.  When  the  first 
driving  forces  at  whose  bidding  we  set  out  begin  to 
spend  themselves  and  the  ways  grow  long  and  we  have 
come  to  some  Mt.  Seir  or  other,  cool  and  reasonably 
pleasant,  with  some  little  reach  of  vision  and  room 
enough  for  a  certain  measure  of  action,  the  temptation 
to  stay  there  becomes  almost  irresistible.  We  never 
confess  —  or  believe  —  at  the  beginning  of  such  wayside 
halts  that  they  are  to  be  permanent.  We  find  an  excuse 
in  our  weariness  and  need  of  rest.  "  Let  us,"  we  say 
to  conscience  and  vision  and  purpose,  "  stay  our  journey 
for  a  little;  there  is  still  time  enough;  we  have  really 
come  a  long  way  and  done  a  great  deal.  Let  us  wait 
a  while  on  these  upper  slopes.  This  is  not  indeed  the 
promised  land,  but  it  is  pleasant  enough;  and  we  may 
count  ourselves  fortunate  to  have  come  as  far  as  we 
have;   after  a  little  we  will  take  up  our  way  again." 

Sometimes  we  are  halted  by  obstacles  which  we  have 
not  for  the  time  being  force  enough  to  overcome;  either 
something  within  us,  some  driving  power,  has  given  way, 
or  some  unusual  combination  of  circumstances  confronts 
us,  or  we  have  really  underestimated  the  difficulties  of 
what  we  have  undertaken;  at  any  rate  we  "  fetch  up," 
and  instead  of  going  straight  on,  we  begin  to   compass 

44 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

some  Mt.  Seir  or  other,  leaving  day  by  day  a  more 
deeply  worn  path  to  mark  the  stages  of  our  weariness  or 
our  cowardice,  losing  day  by  day  the  power  to  really 
enfranchise  ourselves  and  turn  toward  further,  braver 
things. 

Very  often  what  halts  us  is  more  subtle  and  more 
portentous.  The  great  temptation  of  middle  life  is  the 
unwillingness  to  take  risks.  The  sense  of  our  responsi- 
bilities weighs  heavily  upon  us.  We  find  ourselves  at 
the  centre  of  a  web  of  relationships  and  obligations.  We 
have  begun  to  accumulate  all  sorts  of  things  —  businesses 
and  clients,  patients,  houses,  securities,  convictions, 
creeds,  prejudices,  and  all  that  increasing  baggage  train, 
corporeal  and  incorporeal,  by  which  our  progress  is 
attended.  The  whole  sheer  weight  of  things  as  they  are 
handicaps  and  entangles  us  in  the  endeavor  after  things 
as  they  ought  to  be.  We  are,  in  a  very  noble  figure  of 
Dr.  George  Gordon's,  like  mountain  streams  drawn  from 
upland  sources  which,  as  they  come  nearer  the  sea,  forget 
their  early  eagerness,  slacken  in  their  movement,  spread 
themselves  sluggishly  over  shallow  beds,  and  at  the  last 
lose  themselves  in  a  stagnation  which  is  the  very  breed- 
ing-place of  mists  and  poisons.  Quietness  and  content- 
ment pass  with  fearful  ease  over  into  sloth  and  stagna- 
tion, and  sloth  and  stagnation  poison  the  soul. 

We  are  always  needing  to  hear  the  voice  of  God. 
"Ye  have  compassed  this  mountain  long  enough:  turn 
you  to  the  north.  You  are  not  done  yet.  Follow  love 
and  truth  and  goodness,  to  the  end  and  at  any  cost. 
Free  yourselves  from  the  narrowing  coils  of  habit;  con- 
tinue your  journey  toward  the  true  goal.  You  are 
children  of  the  future,  not  of  the  past;  you  are  the  true 
citizens  not  of  the  land  of  things  as  they  are,  but  of  the 
land  of  things  as   they  ought  to  be."     The   God  who 

45 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

thus  commands  us  has  many  voices  —  whatever  chal- 
lenges us,  whatever  will  not  let  us  rest  in  anything  short 
of  the  best,  is  His  spirit  moving  within  us:  whatever 
calls  us  toward  any  kind  of  goodness,  whether  in  fellow- 
ship or  in  character,  is  His  voice. 

I  thank  God  this  morning  for  the  wonder  of  what 
He  offers  us;  for  hopes  and  visions  and  dreams  and  the 
divine  insight  of  a  nobler  life.  I  thank  God  that  no- 
where do  we  discern,  either  within  our  own  souls  or  in 
the  restlessness  of  our  world,  any  halting  place.  I  do 
not  envy  those  who  have  nothing  to  dream  of,  nothing 
to  seek,  nothing  to  fight  for.  I  do  not  believe  that  even 
heaven  itself  can  be  a  place  of  satisfied  desire  with 
nothing  above  or  beyond.  Love  and  truth  and  goodness 
have  no  terminals  either  in  time  or  eternity.  They  have 
all  the  fulness  of  the  Divine  itself.  We  may  journey 
toward  them  forever,  and  still  they  may  call  us  to  some- 
thing yet  to  be  attained.  We  may  climb  as  high  and 
as  far  as  we  will,  there  will  still  be  "  other  heights  in 
other  lives."  While  we  live  we  must  climb.  I  thank 
God,  too,  for  everything  which  either  leads,  or  compels 
us,  to  forsake  the  lesser  and  the  incomplete  for  the  sake 
of  a  richer  and  fuller  life. 

Those  providences  which  break  up  our  very  world 
beneath  our  feet  may  be  most  truly  the  method  of  our 
Father's  love.  Sorrow  and  loss  and  pain,  as  they  turn 
our  questioning  vision  toward  deeper  meanings  and 
other  joys  or  more  enduring  fellowships,  are  a  part  of 
the  Eternal  Goodness.  It  may  be  that  we  shall  see  in 
some  clear  future  light  that  the  travail  and  tragedy  of 
our  world  today  are  but  the  compulsions  of  an  infinite 
wisdom,  breaking  beneath  and  about  us  the  shelters  of 
material  well-being  in  which  the  civilization  of  the 
twentieth   century   was   in    sore   danger   of   losing   itself. 

46 


THE  GREAT   ADVENTURE 

"  Come,"  God  is  saying  in  the  shock  of  battle  and  the 
incessant  thunder  of  guns  and  dissolving  dreams  and 
hopes,  —  "ye  have  compassed  this  mountain  long 
enough:  turn  you  to  the  north.  The  France  and  Eng- 
land and  Germany  and  Russia  and  America  which  now 
you  see  through  the  smoke  of  battle  are  not  what  they 
were  meant  to  be.  There  is  a  richer,  happier  world 
somewhere  beyond:  trust  your  faith  in  it,  follow  your 
hope  of  it,  spend  yourselves  to  bring  it  true:  arise,  go 
on  your  way." 

Each  one  of  us  this  morning,  as  he  searches  his  own 
soul  and  his  own  circumstances,  will  hear  some  such 
call  as  this.  I  have  sometimes  thought  that  the  greatest 
spiritual  danger  of  a  congregation  like  this,  of  a  com- 
munity like  ours,  is  to  be  content  with  the  lesser  good 
and  to  fail  in  the  spirit  of  spiritual  adventure  and  moral 
daring.  The  very  mellowness  of  our  culture  and  the 
very  elements  of  finish  in  our  social  order,  nay,  the 
very  want  of  glaring  faults  and  deficiencies  of  a  coarser 
and  more  evident  sort,  are  really  our  most  subtle  danger. 
There  was  a  time  when  New  England  was  a  community 
of  social  and  spiritual  pilgrims,  willing  to  undertake  all 
kinds  of  experiments,  dreaming  and  daring.  Roger 
Williams,  toward  the  end  of  his  life,  would  call  himself 
nothing  but  a  "  seeker,"  and  he  and  his  like  left  behind 
them  generations  of  "  seekers  "  who  have  made  New  Eng- 
land what  it  is  socially,  industrially  and  spiritually. 

I  wonder  if  this  spirit  of  adventure  has  not  somehow 
spent  itself.  If  we  are  to  seek  it  in  America  today,  as  it 
expresses  itself  in  social  enthusiasms,  new  political  com- 
binations, or  profound  human  passions,  we  shall  not 
find  it  on  this  side  of  the  Hudson  River.  It  has  taken 
the  valley  of  the  Mississippi  for  its  dwelling-place.  It  has 
climbed  the  ranges  of  the  western  mountains;  it  is  setting 

47 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE   OF   LIFE 

up  its  habitations  on  the  shores  of  the  Pacific.  We  need  a 
re-baptism  in  the  spirit  of  our  fathers.  For  all  noble 
living  is  an  adventure  toward  the  ideal.  The  lesser 
certainties  or  sanctities  have  their  own  values,  but  we 
can  never  come  into  the  "  land  of  ought  to  be  "  save 
as  we  turn  in  faith  and  courage  toward  its  shining 
heights.  Love  and  truth  and  goodness  are  always  daring 
us  to  risk  something  for  their  sake. 

I  do  not  know  how  to  make  all  this  as  practical  and 
as  flaming  as  it  ought  to  be;  but  I  do  know  that  any 
real  progress  toward  better  things  is  always  at  a  price. 
We  must  take  some  chances.  We  cannot  be  really 
secure  and  really  great  at  the  same  time  except  as  we 
know  that  all  are  secure  who  follow  truth  and  love  and 
goodness,  at  whatever  cost  and  wherever  they  lead. 
Faith  itself  is  simply  the  adventuring  of  life  upon  what 
must  be  true  if  life  is  to  have  any  meaning  at  all,  but  which 
can  never  be  proved  until  we  have  ventured  out  upon  it. 

There  was  a  time  when  all  the  blessed  commonplaces 
of  our  sheltered  lives  were  ideals  to  be  struggled  for, 
dreams  to  die  for,  hopes  to  battle  for.  We  live  in  a 
land  which  Europe  never  knew  until  Christopher  Co- 
lumbus made  the  great  adventure.  We  are  the  children 
of  a  spiritual  order  which  had  never  existed,  had  not  a 
handful  of  men  and  women  faced  an  unfriendly  sea  in 
a  leaky  ship  for  the  sake  of  their  faith.  Our  liberty, 
whether  civil,  political  or  religious,  is  the  realization  of 
hopes  and  aspirations  for  which  through  the  centuries 
the  prophets  of  liberty  spent  themselves,  and  the  shining 
army  of  the  soldiers  of  the  common  good  lived  and 
battled  and  died.  Our  Christian  faith  was  once  the 
lonely  conviction  of  One  who  sealed  his  testimony  with 
his  cross  and  claimed  the  future  as  his  own,  even  though 
mocked  and  scourged  and  spit  upon. 

48 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

God  has  been  speaking  to  thinkers  and  scholars  since 
man  first  began  to  think,  saying  again  and  again,  "  Ye 
have  compassed  this  mountain  of  knowledge,  or  thought 
or  certainty  or  science,  long  enough:  turn  you  to  the 
promised  land."  So  Copernicus  ventured  everything 
upon  his  faith  that  the  earth  is  round,  and  Galileo  upon 
his  faith  that  the  earth  moves,  and  Newton  upon  his 
confidence  in  the  law  of  gravitation.  The  great  names  of 
modern  science.  Sir  Humphrey  Davy,  Jenner,  Lavoisier, 
Faraday,  Tyndall,  Darwin,  Louis  Pasteur,  Sir  Joseph 
Lister  and  a  fellowship  too  great  to  enumerate,  are  but 
the  names  of  men  who  heard  some  accent  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  and  turned  their  faces  toward  the  vaster  world 
of  undiscovered  truth. 

What  is  true  of  the  scientist  has  been  true  of  the 
inventor.  What  is  true  of  the  inventor  has  been  true 
of  the  great  creative  statesman.  Cavour  dreamed  of 
United  Italy  for  a  generation  and  was  mocked  for  his 
faith.  Gladstone  shook  the  very  bases  of  English  society 
through  his  faith  in  English  democracy,  and  Lloyd- 
George,  who  is  today  the  leader  of  the  blood-tempered 
resolution  of  the  English  people,  was  within  the  easy 
memory  of  every  one  of  us  here  this  morning,  the  most 
hated  man  in  England  through  his  flaming  passion  for 
social  justice.  And  what  shall  I  say  of  saints  who  have 
forsaken  all  for  a  life  "  hid  with  Christ  in  God,"  or  of 
the  missionaries  who  were  a  hundred  years  ago  thought 
the  most  impossible  dreamers  by  a  Church  which  had 
lost  its  confidence  in  the  conquering  power  of  Jesus 
Christ  —  or  the  champions  of  a  fuller  faith  who  were 
but  yesterday  abused  or  denied,  for  the  sake  of  what 
is  today  as  dear  to  us  as  light  and  air?  These  all  heard 
some  accent  of  the  Holy  Ghost  saying  to  them,  "  Ye 
have  compassed   this  mountain  long  enough:    turn  you 

49 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

to  the  north,"  and  their  daring  obedience  has  become 
our  vision  and  our  peace. 

It  is  not  easy  to  save  such  considerations  as  these 
from  a  certain  note  of  unreaHty.  We  are  not  wanting 
in  the  capacity  to  dare  and  even  to  dare  greatly. 
Courage  is  not  dead.  Thirteen  embattled  nations  testify 
to  that.  But  courage  waits  upon  occasion,  and  daring 
upon  a  cause,  and  just  now,  we  say,  there  is  nothing  in 
sight  which  asks  of  us  such  surrenders  or  such  adven- 
tures as  life  has  again  and  again  asked  of  those  who 
have  become  soldiers  and  pioneers  and  road  builders 
for  the  King.^  There  is,  I  admit,  a  measure  of  truth 
in  all  this;  but  in  part  what  I  am  urging  is  simply  the 
recognition  of  the  place  of  spiritual  adventure  in  the 
Christian  life.  I  would  remember  for  myself  and  for 
you  the  spiritual  perils  of  such  sheltered  and  com- 
fortable lives  as  we  for  the  most  part  are  leading.  If 
we  can  do  nothing  more  than  keep  alive  within  us  the 
sense  of  the  incompleteness  of  what  we  are  and  what 
we  do,  if  we  can  hold  fast  to  some  brave  willingness  to 
follow  whatever  calls  us  beyond  ourselves  and  at  what- 
ever cost  —  and  if  we  can  keep  alive  upon  our  spiritual 
altars  the  flame  of  a  clear  devotion  to  the  spirit  and 
ideals  of  Jesus  Christ,  in  which  everything  else  must, 
if  need  be,  be  consumed,  then  we  shall  not  have  listened 
to  this  ancient  exhortation  in  vain. 

But  I  am  persuaded  that  the  matter  goes  deeper  than 
that  —  deeper  individually,  deeper  corporately.  We  have 
only  to  search  our  souls  to  discover  some  habit  or 
other  which  stands  between  us  and  the  larger  spiritual 
realization,  or  some  unwillingness  to  obey  the  clear- 
heard    voice    of    Jesus,    or    some    wasting    halt    in    the 

>  This  and  the  paragraphs  that  follow  were  written  before  our  own  participation 
in  the  war  had  changed  everything  for  us  and  offered  us  the  supreme  occasion. 
But  I  have  let  it  stand.     It  is  still  true. 

50 


THE   GREAT  ADVENTURE 

onward  movement  of  our  lives,  —  some  interruption 
which  checks  our  growth  in  grace  and  knowledge;  and 
very  likely  if  we  are  really  honest  with  ourselves  we 
shall  find  such  spiritual  states  are  rooted  in  our  clinging 
to  the  lesser  securities,  and  our  unwillingness  to  leave 
the  shelter  and  take  to  the  open  road;  and  just  because 
of  this,  joy  and  power  are  failing  us,  and  we  are  living 
too  largely  in  routine  and  not  enough  in  kindling  pur- 
pose or  summoning  vision. 

Nor  do  I  believe  that  our  time  is  lacking  in  oppor- 
tunities for  the  Great  Adventure.  God  is  speaking  to  us 
as  He  has  never  spoken  to  any  age.  He  is  calling  us 
to  the  great  adventure  of  a  righteous  peace.  War  is 
not  the  greatest  adventure.  War  is  after  all,  when  you 
have  searched  out  the  roots  and  meanings  of  it,  but  our 
human  cleaving  to  methods  and  traditions  and  ideals 
and  forces  which  we  should  long  ago  have  outgrown, 
and  which  we  will  not  surrender  because  we  fear  to  give 
them  up.  The  fear  of  peace  which  is  everywhe'-e  mani- 
fest in  the  world  today,  which  sings  in  poems,  speaks 
through  philosophies,  argues  in  diplomacies  and  be- 
comes incarnate  in  statecraft,  is  the  strangest  fear  which 
has  ever  obsessed  humanity.  It  is  not  the  pacifist  today 
who  is  taking  to  shelter  and  who  fears  to  put  his  faith 
to  the  test;  it  is  the  militarist  who  is  taking  to  shelter. 
He  is  afraid  to  trust  justice  except  as  it  be  armed  with 
machine-guns,  and  brotherhood  except  as  it  be  attended 
by  mobilized  armies,  or  truth  except  as  it  is  cast  into 
shells.  Humanity  has  come  to  a  moral  impasse;  and 
unless  there  is  somewhere  force  enough  or  courage 
enough,  either  in  a  nation  or  in  a  great  body  of  makers 
of  public  opinion,  to  venture  even  our  security  and  our 
defense  for  the  sake  of  the  ideals  of  Christian  brother- 
hood, I  for  my  part  do  not  see  how  they  will  find  lodg- 

51 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

ment  in  this  world.  I  know  how  impracticable  this 
sounds  and  how  easy  it  is  to  dismiss  the  men  who  say- 
such  things  as  idle  dreamers,  wholly  out  of  touch  with 
the  world  of  reality. 

Well,  it  may  be  that  we  are  dreamers;  but  this  one 
thing  at  least  is  true,  whether  our  dreams  be  right  or 
wrong  —  no  one  has  any  right  to  say  that  there  is  no 
opportunity  for  spiritual  adventure  in  a  world  like  ours 
when  the  very  application  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ 
to  international  relationships  is  dismissed  as  an  idle 
dream  through  the  risks  involved  in  doing  it.  There  is 
also  the  matter  of  social  justice,  and  those  far-reaching 
reorganizations  of  all  our  social  and  industrial  methods 
to  make  them  more  perfectly  the  instruments  of  the 
spirit  of  Jesus  Christ.  Every  industrial  reform  has 
always  been  an  adventure.  The  champions  of  a  twelve- 
hour  day  said  a  ten-hour  day  would  ruin  industry,  the 
champions  of  a  ten-hour  day  said  a  nine-hour  day 
would  mean  bankruptcy,  and  the  champions  of  a  nine- 
hour  day  felt  the  same  way  about  eight  hours.  Those 
who  have  compassed  their  Mt.  Seir  of  industrial  con- 
servatism have  seen  ruin  in  the  abolition  of  child  labor, 
poverty  in  the  shortening  of  hours  for  women,  and  all 
the  threats  of  Socialism  in  the  oversight  of  hazardous 
businesses  by  the  State. 

Now  these  illustrations  have  no  value  save  as  they 
prove  one  thing  —  that  we  never  could  have  gotten 
anywhere  had  not  some  one  been  willing  to  risk  some- 
thing for  the  sake  of  the  safety  of  men,  or  the  integrity 
of  womanhood,  or  the  happiness  of  little  children.  We 
have  hardly  more  than  crossed  the  threshold  of  spiritual 
industry  or  Christianized  business;  and  before  we  have 
made  the  Lord  Christ  and  his  spirit  master  of  it  all,  we 
shall  be  called  to  venture  many  times. 

52 


THE   GREAT  ADVENTURE 

A  noble  morality  is  always  a  call  to  forsake  the  con- 
ventional or  the  secure  for  the  sake  of  some  vaster, 
better  thing  which  can  be  had  only  at  a  price.  There 
has  never  been  a  time  when  it  has  really  cost  more  to 
venture  everything  for  the  sake  of  the  ideals  of  Jesus 
Christ  than  in  this  morning  of  the  twentieth  century.  I 
have  not  sought  to  apply  these  things  to  the  region  of 
faith,  but  here  also  the  voice  of  God  is  sounding.  In 
the  great  words  of  John  Henry  Newman,  "  Faith  is  a 
venture."  We  are  always  being  asked  to  leave  behind 
us  the  old  forms  in  which  we  found  God  and  to  find 
Him  in  that  which  now  touches  and  illumines  our  lives. 
He  speaks  to  us  in  every  accent  of  new-found  truth,  in 
the  revelations  of  science,  in  the  voices  of  our  own 
prophets,  and  in  the  praises  of  our  own  psalmists.  His 
voice  breathes  through  our  dreams  and  becomes  articu- 
late in  the  very  travail  of  our  restless,  struggling,  suffer- 
ing world.  He  is  asking  us  for  our  souls'  sake  and  for 
the  sake  of  our  truer  knowledge  of  Him,  everywhere 
and  always,  to  seek  Him  where  He  is  today  and  not 
where  He  was  yesterday;  and  for  the  sake  of  our  faith 
itself  to  discern  His  presence  in  all  the  wind-swept  seas 
across  which  the  future  calls  us.  Our  comfortable 
and  conventional  lives  are  spiritually  perilous,  and  it  is 
only,  as  from  generation  to  generation  we  forsake  all 
lesser  things  or  cast  them  into  the  crucible  of  some  all- 
consuming  cause,  that  civilization  is  reborn.  There  is 
adventure  enough,  daring  enough,  risk  enough  in  Chris- 
tian idealism,  if  we  will  but  follow  that  to  the  end,  to 
save  us  from  all  the  numbing  power  of  materialism, 
cowardice  or  shameful  contentment. 

We  have  only  to  challenge  in  the  name  of  Christ 
and  under  the  standard  of  his  cross,  whatever  is  cruel 
or   selfish    or    mean    in    our   world;     and   we   shall    find 

53 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

ourselves  committed  to  a  campaign  which  has  in  it 
action  enough  for  the  most  restless  and  risk  enough 
for  the  most  daring.  Until  we  have  come  far  nearer 
subduing  our  souls  and  our  society  to  the  spirit 
of  Jesus  than  we  have  yet  done,  and  while  we  are  so 
far  away  from  any  realization  of  our  dreams  of  a  divine 
world  as  we  are,  and  while  we  are  so  hard  beset  within 
and  without  by  the  foes  of  the  spirit,  we  shall  never 
want  occasions  for  battle  or  need  to  lay  our  armour 
down.  A  human  fellowship  resolutely  and  bravely 
endeavoring  to  make  justice  and  truth  everywhere 
regnant,  and  to  render  human  brotherhood  something 
more  than  a  bloodstained  hope,  sensitive  to  every  sug- 
gestion of  the  spirit  of  God  and  discerning  in  the  chang- 
ing circumstances  of  life  and  the  unfolding  of  the  divine 
Providence  through  the  massive  sequences  of  history  the 
old  imperative,  "  Ye  have  compassed  this  mountain  long 
enough:  turn  you  to  the  north,"  contains  within 
itself  the  secret  of  a  new  rebirth.  As  long  as  the  Son 
of  God  goes  forth  to  war,  those  who  follow  in  his  train 
will  have  at  once  a  captain  and  a  cause  great  enough  to 
keep  them  clear  of  every  selfishness,  to  endue  them  with 
every  high  spiritual  quality,  to  teach  them  the  secret  of 
sacrifice  and  make  them  rich  in  the  wages  of  a  holy  courage. 
Their  adventure  will  be  his  opportunity,  for  it  is  in  those 
who  dare  greatly  that  he  is  greatly  reincarnate.  Life  offers 
but  one  of  two  alternatives  —  to  sit  by  the  slowly  dying 
embers  of  burnt-out  fires  or  to  arise  and  follow  the  dawn, 

"  They  sit  at  home  and  they  dream  and  dally, 

Raking  the  embers  of  long-dead  years  — 
But  ye  go  down  to  the  haunted  valley 

Light-hearted  pioneers. 
They  have  forgotten  they  ever  were  young, 

They  hear  your  songs  as  an  unknown  tongue, 
But  the  Flame  of  God  through  your  spirit  stirs, 

Adventurers  —  0  Adventurers!  " 

54 


V 

THE  MANIFOLD   KINGSHIP  OF  JESUS  i 

"  And  on  his  head  were  many  crozvns.'"  —  Revelation  19  :  12. 

This  text  lies  at  the  heart  of  the  most  august  apoc- 
alyptic vision  in  the  New  Testament.  Heaven  itself 
has  opened  and  the  armies  of  the  Most  High  ride  out 
to  conquest.  He  that  leads  them  is  set  upon  a  white 
horse;  no  man  can  number  the  hosts  which  follow  him, 
and  his  coming  is  as  the  treading  of  the  winepress  of 
the  Almighty.  For  the  church  today  it  is  all  a  majestic 
symbolism  told  in  words  whose  very  repetition  gives 
wealth  to  our  mother  tongue.  For  those  to  whom  it  was 
long  ago  addressed  it  was  the  literal  hope  of  a  deliver- 
ance for  which  they  cried  up  to  God.  For  us  tonight  it 
is  an  anticipation  and  proclamation  of  the  manifold 
kingship  of  Jesus  and  his  imperial  destiny. 

The  persuasion  of  an  imperial  destiny  has  always  lain 
at  the  very  heart  of  Christianity.  Jesus  had  hardly 
gathered  about  him  a  handful  of  men,  fisherfolk  and  the 
like,  unlearned  and  simple,  before  he  sent  them  out  to 
disciple  the  world.  His  disciples,  while  they  were  still 
the  despised  followers  of  a  crucified  leader,  proclaimed 
to  men  of  all  races  and  faiths  the  supremacy  of  the 
Lord  Christ.  A  divine  compulsion  carried  the  Apostle 
Paul  across  the  narrow  waters  which  divide  Asia  from 
Europe,  to  win  Greece  for  his  Master.  Before  he  died 
he  had  already  claimed  Rome  as  the  capital  city  of  the 

1  A  sermon  preached  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  American  Board  of  Com- 
missioners for  Foreign  Missions  in  Toledo,   1916. 

55 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

spiritual  empire  and  looked  with  longing  eyes,  beginning 
to  be  blinded  by  the  light  of  heavenly  things,  toward 
the  far-off  shores  of  Western  Europe.  In  the  travail 
of  persecutions  which  threatened  her  very  life  the 
Church  never  for  a  moment  surrendered  her  dreams  of 
dominion;  beyond  all  the  overturning  of  temporal  powers 
and  the  recasting  of  heaven  and  earth  in  the  flaming 
purpose  of  God,  she  saw  the  universal  lordship  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  we  are  one  in  spirit  and  succession  with  all 
those  who,  from  the  very  beginning,  have  claimed  the 
world  for  their  Master  and  have  refused  to  rest  until 
his  empire  should   come   true. 

We  may  well  meditate  upon  the  deeper  meaning  of  an 
imperial  passion  so  long  and  so  sacrificially  held.  Other 
religions  have  had  their  propaganda;  there  have  been 
other  missionaries  than  the  missionaries  of  Jesus  Christ, 
but  for  the  most  part  their  course  has  been  soon  run. 
The  great  religions  of  the  East  have  largely  ceased  to 
struggle  —  Mohammedism  alone  maintains  a  propaganda 
which  needs  to  be  taken  into  account,  —  but  Christianity 
has  never  been  content.  There  has  been  as  it  were  a 
"  woe  in  the  bones  "  of  the  disciples  of  Christ  which 
will  not  let  them  rest  while  his  empire  remains  incom- 
plete. Today,  though  many  high  ardors  to  which  the 
Church  once  answered  have  grown  cold,  the  missionary 
passion  burns  with  a  flame  which  grows  constantly  more 
intense.  Christianity  itself  has  not  understood  the 
motives  which  have  driven  it  to  this  ceaseless  widening 
of  its  bounds.  They  are  of  its  very  life,  instinctive, 
persuasive,  unescapable.  What  is  the  secret  of  such 
impulses,  in  what  is  their  justification  to  be  sought? 
Surely  in  nothing  less  than  the  essential  universality  of 
our  faith  and  in  such  fitness  of  Jesus  Christ  for  world 
dominion    as    makes    his    completed    empire    the    very 

56 


THE   MANIFOLD   KINGSHIP   OF   JESUS 

necessity  of  human  well-being  —  and  in   the  longing  of 
men  for  an  imperial  citizenship. 

For  we  are  always  seeking  some  empire  or  other,  we 
children  of  time  and  clay.  Nothing  has  so  mastered  the 
human  imagination  as  the  dream  of  wide  dominion. 
The  very  words  by  which  we  name  it  carry  their  own 
vast  and  awe-inspiring  suggestion  —  "Emperor";  "Em- 
pire"; "Imperial."  How  they  lift  themselves  against 
all  the  horizon  of  the  commonplace.  There  is  something 
within  us  which  answers  to  their  very  repetition  as 
sleeping  soldiers  answer  to  the  trumpet's  call.  We  were 
not  made  for  petty  dominion.  We  instinctively  demand 
an  imperial  obedience  for  the  standard  which  we  love; 
an  imperial  administration  for  the  Leader  whom  we 
follow;  an  imperial  expression  for  our  hopes  and  our 
desires;  all  this  is  as  old  as  time  and  what  it  means  in 
human  history  does  not  need  to  be  re-told.  But  it  is 
also  true  that  there  are  forces  in  history  against  which 
every  dream  of  empire  has  hitherto  broken  itself  as  the 
sea  upon  a  rocky  coast;  pride  of  race  and  love  of  liberty 
and  rich  national  conscientiousness,  and  honest  human 
wrath  against  those  who  would  drive  us  down  their 
own  roads  with  no  regard  to  our  own  loyalties  or  long- 
ings, have  always  in  the  end  proven  mightier  than  the 
ambition  of  kings  or  the  strategy  of  warriors,  or  the 
wealth  of  dominant  races.  The  end  of  all  imperial 
ambition  has  hitherto  been  written  in  the  dust,  and 
what  has  been  will  be  again;  and  yet  so  unconquerable 
is  that  paradoxical  passion  for  empire  in  us  who  will 
not  abide  the  administrations  our  own  ambitions  create, 
that  always  after  a  little  interval  the  passion  for  world  do- 
minion has  gathered  itself  together  anew,  found  a  state  in 
which  to  incarnate  itself  and  a  sword  with  which  to  fight 
and  gone  out  once  more  to  drench  the  earth  with  blood. 

57 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

Here  is  the  profoundest  contradiction  of  history.  We 
can  neither  abide  empire  nor  live  without  it,  and  today 
these  latent  antagonisms  are  at  war  in  earth  and  sky 
and  sea  —  even  in  our  own  souls.  Is  this  always  to  be 
our  fate?  Must  civilization  endlessly  undo  itself  at  the 
bidding  of  two  forces  without  which  we  can  never  rest 
content  and  which  we  cannot  reconcile?  Yes,  unless 
there  is  another  empire  than  the  empire  of  the  sword, 
and  another  Lordship  than  the  Lordship  of  the  Czar 
or  Kaiser  or  King.  It  is  here  —  here  that  the  Lord  of 
the  pierced  hands  stands  in  the  very  heart  of  the  storm, 
offering  us  deliverance  from  ourselves.  There  are  two 
rival  Imperialisms  in  the  world  today,  as  always.  The 
lamb  and  the  beast,  Christ  and  Mars,  the  "  Man  on 
Horseback "  and  the  Man  on  the  Cross.  They  are 
strangely  rooted  in  a  common  soil,  these  contending 
empires;  in  the  tendency  of  every  great  force  to  work 
out  to  the  furthest  limit,  in  our  own  longing  for  unity 
and  coherence  wide  as  life  and  humanity,  in  the  very 
greatness  of  the  soul  itself,  but  they  are  more  remote 
than  the  poles  in  what  they  bring  us.  The  one,  Imperial- 
ism, ruins  itself  and  its  subjects.  The  other  blesses  what- 
ever it  touches.  The  one  is  red  with  blood,  the  other 
white  with  holiness;  the  one  hot  with  hate,  the  other 
aflame  with  love.  We  stand  at  the  forks  of  the  road; 
which  shall  it  be,  —  the  "man  on  horseback"  or  the 
"man  on  the  cross"?  For  us  tonight  there  is  but  one 
answer.  The  one  empire  that  can  save  a  discordant 
world  is  the  empire  of  Christian  brotherhood. 

Here  then  is  the  first  secret  of  the  manifold  kingship 
of  Jesus  Christ.  Because  Christianity  aspires  to  be 
universal  and  answers  in  such  aspiration  to  deathless 
qualities  of  the  soul,  and  because,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
has  a  leader  whose  empire  is  benediction,  whose  domin- 

58 


THE  MANIFOLD  KINGSHIP  OF  JESUS 

ion  is  life  and  redemption  and  in  whose  bonds  we  are 
most  truly  free  in  the  measure  that  we  are  most  utterly- 
bound,  Christianity  and  Jesus  Christ  satisfy  these  deep 
longings  of  ours  for  fellowships  wide  as  humanity  and 
for  the  universal  supremacy  of  what  we  most  deeply 
believe  and  devoutly  love,  yet  without  ever  saddening 
a  single  soul  or  clouding  a  sacred  hope  or  costing  a 
child's   tear. 

Here  is  what  above  all  this  weary,  warring  world  of 
ours  needs  most  clearly  to  see.  Before  our  social  rest- 
lessnesses work  themselves  out  into  peace  we  must  find 
something  which  is  big  enough  to  master  and  make 
brethren  of  us  all.  We  cannot  dwell  in  a  world  which 
wants  some  kind  of  union,  some  all-pervading  coherence; 
there  are  great  human  forces  which  will  run  toward  that 
as  irresistibly  as  the  tides  run  out  to  the  sea;  and  we 
shall  never  secure  this  by  the  imposition  of  any  merely 
human  will  —  whether  single  or  collective  —  upon  the 
wills  of  others.  The  ruins  of  every  empire,  from  As- 
syria and  Thebes  until  today,  bear  testimony  to  that. 
The  jackals  which  prowl  and  the  night-birds  which  cry 
about  the  desolations  where  once  the  rulers  of  Nineveh 
and  Babylon  built  their  palaces  are  but  the  elder  voices 
of  time,  testifying  to  the  futility  of  any  force  which 
does  not  set  up  its  capital  city  in  the  hearts  of  men  and 
reign  in  their  loving  obedience.  If  the  multitude  of 
those  who  fought  and  suffered  and  died  in  the  endeavor 
to  realize  these  deep  instincts  of  ours  for  empire,  in 
wrong  and  forbidden  ways,  could  somehow  sweep  by  us 
in  endless  and  shadowy  procession,  those  hosts  of  the 
lost  which  Dante  saw  driven  down  the  winds  of  the  In- 
ferno would  be,  compared  with  them,  only  as  the 
shadow  of  a  leaf  against  the  shadow  of  a  cloud.  Jesus 
Christ   alone   offers   the   world   an   empire   in   which   the 

59 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

longings  for  unity  may  be  richly  satisfied  and  its  long- 
ings for  individuality  equally  respected.  Nothing  else 
can  do  this;  the  only  possible  unity  is  a  spiritual  unity, 
the  only  force  great  enough  to  command  all  men  is 
Christianity;  the  only  program  inclusive  enough  to  give 
all  men  and  nations  a  place  in  the  sun  and  yet  to  make 
them  something  greater  than  themselves  is  the  program 
of  Jesus  Christ. 

The  first  crown,  then,  which  the  seer  saw  upon  His 
head  who  rides  out  "  conquering  and  to  conquer "  is 
the  crown  of  an  imperial  ideal  which  will  satisfy  our 
longings  for  unity  without  stifling  liberty,  and  empower 
without  destroying  what  is  most  divinely  distinctive  in 
humanity:  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  the  only  kingdom 
which  has  any  divine  right  in  God's  world,  and  Jesus 
Christ  is  the  only  King  who  may  reign  by  divine  decree. 

The  second  of  the  many  crowns  on  the  head  of  Jesus 
is  the  crown  of  an  imperial  method.  There  are  two 
ways  of  winning  lordship.  There  is  really  but  one  true 
way,  though  there  is  another  way  which  has  deceived 
us,  mocking  the  very  hopes  which  it  promises  to  fulfil. 
Force  imposes,  but  love  evokes.  The  best  that  force 
can  do  is  for  a  little  while  to  rule  through  fear  or  hope- 
lessness. At  the  best,  force  is  a  substitute  for  finer 
agencies;  at  the  worst,  it  dulls  or  deadens  all  better 
things.  Force  may  hinder  the  wrongdoer,  as  iron  bars 
may  shut  him  away  from  society,  but  force  can  never 
reform  him  or  solve  the  real  ethical  and  social  probhm 
which  he  offers.  Force  may,  upon  occasion,  compel  an 
unwilling  nation  to  accept  the  will  of  another  nation; 
but  if  that  will  be  just  and  right  it  would  in  the  end 
have  prevailed  through  its  own  justice  and  rightness,  and 
that  at  vastly  smaller  cost.  The  show  of  force  may 
warn  a  predatory  people  that  the  price  of   some  greedy 

60 


THE  MANIFOLD   KINGSHIP   OF   JESUS 

enterprise  will  be  too  great  to  make  up  for  its  possible 
gains.  Force  may  drive  a  tiger-nation  back  to  its  lair, 
but  force  can  never  change  the  tiger  heart. 

Beyond  this,  force  does  not  and  cannot  act.  It 
cheats  us;  we  are  always  using  it  because  we  will  not 
take  the  pains  nor  pay  the  price  of  bringing  into  action 
the  true  healing  and  transforming  forces.  Force  often 
overlies  and  constantly  hinders  the  exercise  of  the  truer, 
better  things.  Empire  cannot  be  secured  by  force  — 
or,  if  secured,  it  cannot  be  maintained.  The  blood  of 
the  conquered  is  a  poor  cement,  and  sooner  or  later  a 
thousand  latent  resistances  will  in  turn  forge  swords  and 
mobilize  armies  and  beat  their  blind  master  into  the 
dust.  Listen  to  Napoleon  from  the  rock  of  St.  Helena  — 
and  who  should  know  better  than  he?  —  "Alexander, 
Caesar,  Charlemagne  and  myself  founded  great  empires; 
upon  what  did  the  creations  of  our  genius  depend? 
Upon  force.  Jesus  alone  founded  His  empire  upon  love, 
and  to  this  very  day  millions  would  die  for  him." 

The  true  imperial  forces  are  love  and  justice  and  fair 
dealing,  patient  discipline,  education,  brave  trust  and 
saving  passion  —  these  are  the  methods  of  Jesus  Christ. 
He  sought  no  unwilling  disciples;  He  has  never  laid  any 
coercion  but  love  upon  a  single  human  soul.  He  wins 
men  by  meeting  their  abiding  needs,  by  shining  into 
their  lives  in  the  light  of  truth,  by  giving  them  new 
causes  to  serve,  new  ends  to  seek  and  new  values  to 
enthrone.  He  was  all  patience  and  gentleness  with 
whomsoever  gave  him  as  much  as  the  shadow  of  an 
opportunity  to  reach  and  change  their  hearts.  He  cast 
his  wisdom  abroad  as  the  sower  sows  the  seed  in  the 
hope  that  some  seed  might  fall  in  good  soil;  and  once 
he  had  set  up  his  empire  thus  established  in  a  single  life, 
the  gates  of  hell  were  powerless  against  him.     He  be- 

61 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

queathed  to  his  disciples  the  methods  which  he  himself 
followed,  and  though  the  Church  has  too  often  forgotten 
the  blessed  example  of  her  Lord,  she  has  never  been  so 
strong  as  when  she  fought  with  his  weapons  or  so  weak 
as  when  she  cast  them  aside  and  took  instead  the 
weapons  of  the  world.  She  has  never  really  won  or  kept 
anything  save  in  his  spirit  and  with  his  appointed 
weapons. 

Jesus  Christ  wears  another  crown  —  the  Conquering 
Crown  of  the  cross.  It  is  no  easy  thing  to  establish  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  Christ  and  his  disciples  were  from 
the  first  committed  to  warfare.  He  Himself  said  that 
he  "  came  not  to  bring  peace  but  a  sword."  Any  great 
ideal  which  has  to  make  its  way  in  a  world  like  ours 
must  win  every  square  foot  of  the  territory  which  it 
occupies  in  the  face  of  opposition,  compared  with  which 
the  conquest  of  Verdun  is  but  the  easy  occupation  of  a 
summer  afternoon.  Prejudice,  deeply-rooted  conserva- 
tisms, vested  interests,  half  truths,  sloths  and  selfishness, 
and  all  the  evil  qualities  of  the  soul,  oppose  all  better 
things.  These  are  strong  beyond  calculation.  They  are 
rich  in  resource,  stubborn  in  defence,  unscrupulous  in 
method,  and  upon  occasion  bitterly  cruel.  They  change 
their  faces  and  their  flags  at  need;  they  disguise  them- 
selves in  garments  of  goodness  and  seek  to  use  for  their 
own  defence  the  weapons  of  righteousness  and  order. 

The  longer  one  lives,  the  more  clearly  one  comes  to 
understand  that  the  really  hard  thing  in  the  world  is 
to  change  human  attitudes  and  re-cast  the  soul.  It  is 
easier  to  join  the  seas  together  and  pierce  mountain 
ranges  and  conquer  earth  and  air,  than  to  prevail  over 
the  human  spirit  armed  against  the  high  cause  of  the 
ideal.  "  We  wrestle  not,"  says  the  apostle,  "  against 
flesh     and     blood,     but     against     principalities,     against 

62 


THE  MANIFOLD   KINGSHIP  OF   JESUS 

powers,  against  the  rulers  of  the  darkness  of  this  world, 
against  spiritual  wickedness  in  high  places  —  wherefore 
take  unto  you  the  whole  armour  of  God."  Only  truth 
is  strong  enough  to  defeat  a  lie;  goodness  alone  is  great 
enough  to  subdue  evil;  humility  is  the  only  foe  which 
pride  really  needs  to  dread,  and  patience  the  one  defiance 
in  the  face  of  which  the  hard  and  arbitrary  are  helpless. 

It  is  with  such  weapons  as  these  that  Christ  and  those 
who  follow  him  ride  out  to  conquest.  They  do  not,  to 
begin  with,  greatly  trouble  those  who  oppose  them.  They 
seem  too  insubstantial,  too  easy  to  turn  against  those 
who  use  them.  They  do  not  in  the  beginning  of  the 
fight  wound  the  adversary  in  any  mortal  spot  or  greatly 
pain  him,  even  though  they  pierce  his  armour;  nay, 
by  a  divine  contradiction,  they  wound  soonest  those 
who  bear  them.  There  is  no  battle  without  wounds; 
but  in  the  Christian  warfare  the  soldier  of  Christ  has 
first  to  suffer.  There  is  no  suffering  beneath  the  stars 
like  the  suffering  of  goodness  thwarted  in  its  holy  pur- 
poses; of  patience  seeing  no  travail  of  her  soul  wherein 
to  be  satisfied,  or  of  love  yearning  after  those  who  will 
not  heed,  and  yearning  in  vain.  Those  who  would 
advance  the  ideals  of  Jesus  by  the  methods  of  Jesus, 
in  the  face  of  the  foes  of  his  kingdom  and  of  his  spirit 
must  count  upon  such  suffering  as  this;  it  will  be  as 
if  their  weapons  turned  in  their  hands  and  they  them- 
selves felt  first  their  edge. 

This  is  the  first  falling  of  the  shadow  of  the  cross  at 
the  feet  of  those  who  seek  the  ideals  of  God;  it  is  a 
kind  of  inner  and  hidden  crucifixion;  but  it  is  none  the 
less  real  and  the  pain  of  it  is  a  part  of  the  cost  of  a 
better  world.  Nay,  more  than  that,  the  adversaries, 
thinking  themselves  unwounded,  find  opportunity  to 
use  their  own  weapons;    they  meet  patience  with  pride, 

63 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

long-suffering  with  disdain,  holy  aspiration  with  mockery, 
true  teaching  with  denial,  and  love  with  unconcern. 
They  do  more  than  that.  They  grow  impatient  of  being 
so  assailed  and  undertake  once  and  for  all  to  end  the 
strife.  They  use  force  and  persecution.  They  reach 
for  the  hammer  and  the  nails;  they  plant  the  cross 
and  begin  to  weave  a  crown  of  thorns.  "  We  will 
silence,"  they  say,  "  these  lips  which  will  not  let  us  be, 
we  will  drive  the  nails  through  these  hands  which  seek 
to  lead  us  up  unwelcome  paths;  we  will  drive  our 
spears  through  hearts  whose  love  we  will  not  own," 
and  because  those  who  are  subject  to  such  counter 
attack  have  no  weapons  but  the  weapons  of  the  spirit, 
they  have  no  resource  but  to  suffer  and  be  silent.  But 
in  all  this  there  are  hidden  powers  which  presently  begin 
to  make  themselves  manifest.  Those  who  wage  warfare 
against  patience,  gentleness,  love  and  justice  discover 
that  though  they  have  silenced  the  prophets,  the  word 
is  still  proclaimed;  and  although  they  have  nailed  loving 
hands  to  the  cross,  other  hands  reach  out  to  bless  them; 
and  though  they  have  pierced  the  very  heart  of  the  Son 
of  God,  he  rises  deathless  from  the  tomb. 

There  is  no  weapon  in  the  world  like  the  weapon  of 
suffering  love;  and  though  it  does  not  immediately  have 
its  way  with  men,  nothing  else  is  in  the  end  so  sure  to 
prevail.  Suffering  love  breaks  down  stubborn  defence 
and  melts  hard  hearts,  and  softens  hostile  wills,  wakes 
the  slumbering  conscience,  rouses  the  sleeping  better 
self,  touches  with  a  great  and  moving  awe  those  who 
came  to  scoff  until  they  confess  even  at  the  foot  of  the 
cross  they  themselves  have  planted,  "  Truly  this  was  the 
Son  of  God."  In  the  end  patience  and  love  and  justice 
and  spiritual  passion  and  high  desire  for  the  happiness 
of  others,   prove   themselves   the  very  weapons  of  God, 

64 


THE  MANIFOLD  KINGSHIP  OF   JESUS 

winning  their  way  in  triumph  across  every  hard,  con- 
tested field.  Such  forces  as  these,  reinforced  by  the 
willingness  of  those  who  wield  them  to  suffer  and  die 
if  need  be,  cannot  be  withstood;  the  eternal  years  of 
God  are  theirs,  and  though  they  be  long  in  coming  to 
their  own,  yet  they  come  to  their  own  at  last. 

If  Christianity  is  to  prevail,  it  will  not  prevail  through 
its  wealth  or  its  organization  or  its  efficiency  or  its 
dependence  upon  lesser  forces,  or  any  such  thing;  but 
simply  because  the  followers  of  Jesus  Christ,  baptised 
into  his  spirit,  possessed  by  his  temper,  committed  to 
his  ideals,  and  fighting  with  his  weapons,  have  at  any 
cost  to  themselves  held  fast  to  that  which  he  has  com- 
mitted unto  them,  until  the  great  Christian  qualities 
have  had  their  way  with  men  and  have  possessed  and 
transformed  them. 

Now  in  these  three,  in  an  Imperial  Ideal,  an  Imperial 
Method  and  an  Imperial  Force,  the  Empire  of  Christ  is 
secured.  There  is  much  to  be  said  here,  of  course,  for 
which  there  is  no  time  and  in  this  instance  no  occasion. 
I  have  gathered  up  under  one  heading  —  an  Imperial 
Ideal  —  the  whole  content  of  the  gospel.  It  is  more 
than  an  ideal;  it  is  life,  and  love  and  redemption.  Our 
hope  of  the  universal  lordship  of  Jesus  Christ  would  be 
but  the  baseless  figment  of  a  vision,  did  he  not  hold  in 
his  pierced  hands  all  that  men  may  rightly  desire,  and 
were  it  not  true  also  that  the  by-products  of  the  gospel 
—  its  outcome  in  life  and  society,  that  is  —  are  rich 
in  every  kind  of  social  and  industrial  and  political  better- 
ment. There  is  also  the  mystic  wonder  of  Christ  him- 
self in  whose  service  we  are  made  free,  in  whose  com- 
radeship we  are  made  glad,  in  whose  face  we  see  the 
glory  of  God  and  in  whose  sacrificial  love  we  are  re- 
deemed.    Given  a  gospel  like  this,  and  so  true  a  method 

65 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

by  which  to  spread  it,  and  so  unconquerable  a  force  by 
which  to  further  it,  and  the  end  is  not  in  doubt.  What 
was  long  ago  foreseen  will  become  the  record  of  history 
and  the  many  crowns  of  the  apocalyptic  vision  be  made 
blessedly  real  in  the  Christianization  of  the  world. 

There  is  no  better  illustration  of  all  this  than  the 
missionary  enterprise,  in  the  service  of  which  we  are 
gathered  here  tonight.  More  splendidly  than  anything 
else  which  she  has  ever  undertaken,  the  missionary  enter- 
prise of  the  Christian  Church  has  revealed  the  manifold 
kingship  of  Jesus  Christ  and  witnessed  to  his  triple 
power.  We  have  been  for  the  most  part  purged  from 
selfishness  in  undertaking  it;  it  is  born  of  the  purest 
motives  of  which  the  Church  is  capable.  There  is  no 
element  of  gain  in  it  or  any  self-advancement.  It  is  a 
labor  of  love  undertaken  in  a  pure  spiritual  passion  and 
out  of  a  Christlike  concern  for  the  souls  of  those  whose 
souls  we  seek. 

More  than  that,  through  the  very  circumstances  of 
missionary  work  we  have  been  compelled  to  follow  the 
pure  methods  of  the  gospel;  we  have  sent  our  mis- 
sionaries as  sheep  to  the  slaughter,  armed  with  nothing 
but  love  and  patience  and  holy  desire  and  a  passion  for 
the  Kingdom.  They  have  had  to  win  their  way  by 
winning  the  hearts  of  those  they  served.  We  have  not 
cared  greatly  for  statistics  or  demanded  immediate 
results;  we  have  been  quite  willing  that  men  and  women 
should  spend  their  lives  without  a  single  convert,  for  we 
have  known  how  great  the  enterprise  is  to  which  they 
have  been  committed.  We  have  not  used  force  or  any 
kind  of  violence,  nor  been  at  all  in  haste.  We  have  let 
the  Spirit  of  Jesus  work  as  he  himself  would  have  it 
work  in  all  the  world,  nor  have  we  feared  the  cost;  we 
have  counted   the  cost  beforehand   and   known   that  so 

66 


THE   MANIFOLD  KINGSHIP  OF  JESUS 

great  an  empire  could  not  be  won  without  much  pain 
and  loss;  but  we  ourselves  have  borne  the  pain  and 
suffering  and  loss,  and  therefore,  while  at  home  the 
Church  has  too  often  feared  and  doubted  and  been 
afraid  to  suffer,  and  has  again  and  again  well-nigh  lost 
her  life  because  she  would  not  lose  it,  on  missionary 
fields  the  Church  in  braver  and  more  Christlike  passion 
has  won  the  only  resplendent  victory  which  she  has  won 
since  the  days  of  the  Reformation.  I  would  not  test 
Christianity  tonight  by  much  that  we  are  doing  in 
Christian  lands;  I  would  test  it  by  its  missionary  pas- 
sion and  missionary  triumphs.  The  lessons  which  we 
ought  to  learn  are  across  the  sea,  and  if  only  the  spirit 
of  the  missionary  church  may  return  as  a  tide  upon  the 
Church  at  home  we  may  then  rewrite  the  history  of  the 
world  in  a  single  generation. 

More  than  that,  the  missionary  church  is  teaching  us 
the  truest  secret  of  Christian  unity  and  the  true  secret 
of  the  brotherhood  of  the  nations.  The  strongest  bonds 
which  have  been  woven  between  alien  peoples  in  the 
last  one  hundred  years  have  been  woven  by  the  mis- 
sionaries of  the  cross.  It  is  not  diplomacy  nor  any  kind 
of  statecraft,  nor  any  wisdom  of  our  administrators, 
which  holds  America  and  Japan  together  tonight.  It  is 
the  work  of  the  Christian  missionary,  and  though  there 
are  forces  in  America  striving  with  a  blind  fatuity  which 
we  cannot  rightly  characterize,  to  undo  what  they  have 
done,  still  the  blessed  bonds  of  the  Cross  of  Christ  hold 
fast,  and  if  there  is  to  be  any  peace  between  us  and  them 
it  will  have  to  be,  when  the  accounts  of  history  are  cast 
up,  the  accomplishments  of  the  missionary  Church. 
What  real  bonds  there  are  between  China  and  any  other 
people  are  such  bonds  as  have  been  established  in  the 
service  of  Jesus  Christ.     Here  is  our  true  defence  against 

67 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

any  peril  —  yellow,  brown  or  white.  A  hard  and  ma- 
terialistic civilization  has  too  often  come  in  behind  the 
missionary,  unraveling  what  he  has  woven  and  leaving 
the  mark  of  the  mailed  fist  in  place  of  the  print  of  the 
pierced  hand;  but  even  so,  what  true  forces  there  are 
even  now  in  action  to  secure  the  spiritual  unity  of  our 
dissevered  world  are  the  incarnation  in  some  form  or 
other  of  the  spirit  of  Jesus, 

The  labor  of  the  missionary  constitutes  such  a  story 
as  must  kindle  every  heart  —  rich  in  sacrifice,  wondrous 
in  heroism,  splendid  in  patience,  shining  in  love.  If 
there  be  any  one  who  fears  that  Christianity  will  rob 
the  soul  of  daring,  let  him  read  the  missionary  annals 
of  the  Christian  Church  and  forget  his  fear.  If  there 
are  those  who  seek  for  our  material  age  a  new  and 
heroic  expression,  let  them  be  taught  of  the  missionaries 
of  the  cross,  then  let  them  turn  to  their  own  cities, 
states  and  firesides  and  discover  everywhere  such  oppor- 
tunities for  the  expression  of  the  spirit  of  Christ  as  shall 
make  us  all  blood  kin  in  the  splendor  of  a  shining  devo- 
tion to  an  imperial  cause  —  and  we  are  only  upon  the 
threshold  of  it  all. 

Twice  I  have  climbed  to  those  high  shoulders  of  the 
Central  Alps  where  the  roads  which  you  follow  bring 
you  to  the  very  edge  of  the  Rhone  glacier  and  to  the 
sources  of  those  rivers  which  seek  the  Mediterranean. 
Once  I  came  there  at  the  end  of  a  long  day's  tramp, 
when  the  clouds  which  had  been  slowly  gathering  for 
twenty-four  hours  finally  settled  down  upon  the  moun- 
tains. I  heard  the  voices  of  the  waters  but  did  not  see 
them.  I  saw  the  beginnings  of  mountain  snows  but  no 
white  and  lonely  splendor.  It  was  at  best  a  broken  and 
shadowed  world  of  hopes  and  prophecies;  all  things  were 
lost  and  darkened  by  the  clouds.     Again  I  came  by  the 

68 


THE   MANIFOLD   KINGSHIP  OF   JESUS 

same  road  at  the  end  of  a  day  when  a  cloudless  dav/n  had 
moved  through  light  to  a  sunset  unobscured  by  a  single 
breath  of  mist,  and  there,  all  which  had  been  before 
lost  in  clouds  and  deepening  shadows  stood  in  such 
glory  as  he  must  have  seen  who  saw  the  gold  and  ivory 
walls  of  the  New  Jerusalem.  Every  snow-clad  moun- 
tain was  an  altar  and  the  very  shining  of  their  summits 
a  white  and  moving  glory.  I  watched  while  the  day 
died  away  and  the  stars  came  out  and  the  quiet  hours 
of  the  night  moved  on;  and  always,  always  there  lay 
upon  those  high  summits  an  unfading  light.  Before  the 
afterglow  of  the  evening  had  darkened  and  withdrawn, 
the  light  of  another  day  borne  upon  the  wings  of  the 
morning  possessed  anew  those  heights,  from  which  I 
learned  in  a  night's  vigil  the  meaning  of  the  ancient 
proclamation  —  "There   shall   be   no   night   there." 

Our  hope  of  the  Kingdom  is  like  that.  It  is  overlaid 
by  clouds  and  much  obscured  by  fear  and  folly.  We 
see,  here  and  there,  but  brokenly  the  lesser  summits; 
the  far  prophetic  slopes  are  lost  in  darkness.  But  the 
clouds  will  clear  away  —  and  where  we  now  see  but 
broken  contours  we  shall  see  the  shining  table-lands  of 
God;  where  now  we  see  but  broken  hopes  our  children's 
children  shall  discover  divine  fulfilment;  where  now  the 
Empire  of  Christ  is  but  an  anticipation  it  shall  some  day 
be  made  perfect,  and  in  his  spirit  shall  these  human  fel- 
lowships of  ours  be  lifted,  please  God,  so  high  that  the 
holy  lights  of  the  enduring  spiritual  order  shall  fall  upon 
them  forever,  undarkened.  For  in  the  Kingship  of  Jesus 
Christ  the  temporal  and  eternal  have  their  holy  meeting 
place,  and  the  Lamb  is  the  light  thereof. 


69 


VI 
THE  WINNING  OF  A  SOUL 

"  In  your  patience  ye  shall  win  your  souls."  —  Luke  21  :  19. 

Are  souls  then  really  won?  Is  not  the  soul  beyond 
our  power  either  to  create  or  to  destroy?  What  differ- 
ences of  station,  wisdom,  grace  or  power  are  for  a 
moment  to  be  considered  alongside  this  elemental  thing 
which  escapes  our  definitions,  lifts  us  above  the  clay, 
and  which  is  indeed  not  something  we  possess,  but 
rather  just  what  makes  us  what  we  are?  Have  not  our 
souls  been  won  for  us  through  such  creative  travail  of 
the  spirit  of  God,  as  we  do  but  dimly  guess?  To  talk 
of  winning  a  soul,  then,  is  as  idle  as  to  speak  of  the 
sightless  winning  sight,  or  the  lifeless  winning  life.  If  it 
be  not  ours,  nay,  if  it  be  not  us  to  begin  with,  how 
shall  we  ever  come  to  possess  it?  To  such  conclusions 
as  these  our  accepted  thought  about  the  soul  inevitably 
brings  us. 

But  we  have  other,  freer  uses  of  the  word  "  soul," 
which  give  us  pause.  We  say  upon  occasion  that  a  man 
has  no  soul  at  all;  soulless  is  one  of  our  well-worn 
adjectives.  In  our  hasty  judgments  we  condemn  our 
fellows  as  possessing  little,  or  mean,  or  crippled  souls. 
The  Master  tells  us  that  to  gain  the  whole  world  and 
lose  one's  own  soul  is  to  have  worse  than  lived  in  vain. 
And  finally,  in  this  passage  here,  spoken  for  the  guidance 
of  a  handful  of  sorely  tried  men  about  to  pass  as  heralds 
of  the  kingdom  through  searching  experiences,  Jesus 
Christ  says  that  the  greatest  outcome  of  Christian  dis- 

70 


THE  WINNING   OF  A  SOUL 

cipleship,  steadfastly  pursued  through  many  difficulties, 
is  the  winning  of  a  soul,  and  we  may  not  easily  deny 
his  right  to  speak  with  authority.  Moreover,  a  thorough 
examination  of  the  uses  of  the  word  "  soul  "  in  the  New 
Testament  —  such  as  a  scholar  like  Cremer,  for  example, 
has  conducted  —  does  not  justify  us  in  concluding  that 
we  have  neither  responsibility  in  the  administration  of 
our  souls  nor  power  to  win  them.  Soul  is  a  vast  and 
plastic  word,  standing  for  a  vast  and  plastic  reality.  It 
is  true  that  our  souls  are  God's  gifts  to  us,  born  of  the 
breath  of  His  spirit  upon  the  clay,  secured  for  us 
through  the  mystic  continuities  of  inheritance;  but  it 
is  equally  true  that  the  soul  is,  in  its  beginnings  at  least, 
but  the  prophecy  of  personality.  It  may  become  a 
thousand  things.  This  is  the  wonder  of  the  soul.  The 
chemist  in  his  laboratory  alters  the  very  form  and  con- 
stitution of  matter;  the  physicist  transforms  a  lump  of 
coal  into  the  white  brilliancy  of  an  incandescent  light; 
but  such  changes  as  these  are  not  to  be  compared  with 
the  transmutation  of  a  soul  as  it  unfolds  in  great  and 
glowing  qualities  or  withers  into  seared  nothingness  on 
the  tragic  slopes  of  sin  and  shame.  Here  is  the  open 
secret  of  any  contradictory  thought  about  our  souls, 
and  here  is  the  true  indication  of  what  it  means  to 
win  them.  We  win  our  souls  as  we  fulfill  their  better 
prophecies,  carry  to  full  completion  their  plastic  possi- 
bilities and  fill  in  the  dim  anticipations  of  personality 
with  the  rich  grace  of  perfect  manhood  and  womanhood. 
There  is  nothing  in  any  lily  bulb,  brown,  shriveled 
and  earth-stained,  to  suggest  the  deep-cupped  calyx 
whose  waxen  stainlessness  even  the  dews  seem  to  tarnish, 
and  yet  there  is  nothing  which  we  have  the  right  to  say 
of  the  lily  which  we  cannot  say  of  the  bulb.  The  lily 
is  actually  there.     Any  man  who  fails  to  conceive  the 

71 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

bulb  in  terms  of  the  fuUgrown  lily  makes  the  saddest 
of  mistakes,  but  the  man  who  pretends  to  find  in  the 
bulb  itself  all  the  qualities  of  the  fullblown  flower  is 
equally  blind.  One  says:  "This  thing  is  brown  and 
shriveled  and  dead.  I  cannot  understand  your  joy  in  it; 
it  means  nothing  to  me."  The  other  says:  "  Here  is 
perfect  beauty,  fragrance,  stainlessness.  You  are  blind 
if  you  cannot  see  it."  Both  of  them  are  right,  both  are 
wrong.  The  bulb  is  the  possibility  of  beauty,  the 
prophecy  of  stainlessness,  the  hope  and  expectation  of 
the  blossom's  waxen  wonder,  but  only  the  gardener 
knows  what  culture  and  care,  what  ministration  of 
earth  and  sky  are  needed  before  that  hope  is  fulfilled. 

The  soul  is  like  that.  As  far  as  it  is  the  full,  rich 
possibility  of  personality,  as  far  as  it  makes  us  what 
we  are,  nay,  as  far  as  I  am  my  soul  and  my  soul  is  I, 
it  is  God's  gift  to  me,  and  I  may  not  win  it.  But 
in  so  far  as  my  soul  —  my  true  soul  —  is  nothing  less 
than  what  I  in  the  end  may  become  through  the  mani- 
fold discipline  and  experience  of  life,  then  I  may  not 
only  win  a  soul,  but  I  shall  never  have  a  soul  unless  I 
do  win  it,  and  the  failure  to  win  it  will  involve  in  a 
common  sterility  all  the  enterprises  of  life.  The  soul 
is  at  once  a  possession  and  an  achievement,  and  we  are 
never  for  a  moment  to  allow  the  greatness  of  what  we 
possess  to  blind  us  to  those  obligations  of  spiritual 
husbandry  which  alone  can  give  meaning  to  what  we 
possess. 

How  then  do  we  win  our  souls?  How  are  we  to  take 
these  forms  and  prophecies  of  spiritual  wealth  and  give 
them  such  reality  as  make  the  soul,  not  only  the 
prophecy  of  what  we  may  become,  but  the  radiant 
record  of  what  we  have  achieved,  and  the  deatjiless 
manifestation  of  what  we  are.     It  is  hard  to  choose  the 

72 


THE  WINNING   OF  A  SOUL 

right  illustration,  for  there  are  so  many,  but  let  us  think, 
for  example,  of  what  it  means  to  win  a  soul  in  the  world 
of  music. 

I.  We  bring,  to  begin  with,  to  such  a  task  as 
that,  capacities  already  created  for  us,  and  wrought  into 
the  very  stuff  of  our  personality.  We  have  hidden 
depths  of  being  which  answer  to  rhythmic  and  har- 
monic suggestion  as  the  sea  answers  to  the  rising  wind. 
The  soul  itself  is  a  kind  of  instrument  to  be  played 
upon.  There  are  correspondences  between  nobly  ordered 
sound  and  the  hushed  quietudes  of  the  spirit,  whose 
beginnings  lie  deeper  than  we  dream.  But  all  this 
never  becomes  real  unless  we  deal  with  it,  discipline 
and  perfect  it.  We  win  a  soul  for  music  only  as  we 
give  music  a  chance  with  the  soul,  surrender  ourselves 
to  it,  wait  upon  it  as  a  disciple  waits  upon  a  master. 
Then  its  vibrant  strings  cry  aloud  for  us  our  ecstasies, 
its  trumpets  voice  our  triumphs.  It  spreads  abroad  in 
our  perturbed  souls  its  vast  and  healing  power.  It 
prays  for  us  and  sobs  for  us  and  breaks  down  for  us 
limitations  of  time  and  space,  and  like  some  tide  come 
in  from  other  and  diviner  regions  bears  us  back,  as  we 
surrender  ourselves  to  it,  to  its  own  far  and  hidden 
sanctuaries.  It  becomes  the  manifold  articulation  of 
our  memories  or  our  desires,  voicing  what  would  other- 
wise be  unspeakable,  and  in  an  universal  language.  So 
Alfred  Noyes  hears  a  barrel-organ  above  the  hoarse 
and  weary  voice  of  London,  and  straightway  for  him, 
and  for  all  who  hear,  other  voices  call  and  a  new  glory 
shines  through  the  dust,  and  a  thousand  memories  stir, 
and  a  new  light  comes  into  tired  eyes,  and  — 

"  A  hundred  thousand  feet 
Are  marching  on  to  glory  through  the  poppies  and  the  wheat 
In  the  land  where  the  dead  dreams  go." 

73 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

So  Wordsworth  hears  the  voice  of  a  Scotch  girl  across 
the  highland  slopes  and  knows  the  magic  — 

"  Of  old,  unhappy  far-off  things, 
And  battles  long  ago." 

So  John  Zundel,  Henry  Ward  Beecher's  organist,  told 
Beecher  that  he  could  neither  speak  right  nor  devoutly 
pray  save  with  the  organ  keys  beneath  his  fingers. 
Then  the  organ  became  the  instrument  of  what  he  other- 
wise vainly  struggled  to  express,  and  voiced  his  spiritual 
passion  through  its  vast  and  hidden  articulations. 

As  we  pass  from  region  to  region  of  musical  relation- 
ships in  such  ways  as  these,  we  begin  to  find  meanings 
in  forms  of  musical  expression  which  aforetime  we 
scorned.  We  are  not  content  with  the  simply  melodic; 
we  glory  in  intricate  and  embroidered  harmonics,  in  vast 
themes  shaped  and  reshaped  by  the  genius  of  a  Handel, 
a  Wagner  or  a  Beethoven.  We  rejoice  in  moving  mo- 
tives, half  concealed  and  half  revealed.  We  come 
presently  to  see  that  the  men  who  have  been  able  to 
hear  in  the  silences  a  music  still  unsung,  to  discern  the 
proper  instruments  for  its  manifold  expression,  and  so 
to  gather  together  and  direct  great  orchestras  that  the 
fragmentary  is  made  symphonic  and  dissonances  are 
welded  into  majestic  agreements,  and  rapturous  tides 
rise  and  fall,  now  beating  like  the  sea  against  rock- 
bound  coasts  and  now  hushed  into  half-heard  whispers, 
belong  to  the  lonely  fellowship  of  supreme  genius.  So 
we  gain  a  new  world,  and  that  new  world  on  the  other 
hand  gains  a  new  citizen.  What  was  once  unreal  and 
impossible  has  become  to  us  blessedly  real,  the  high 
source  of  holy  gladness,  a  spring  of  unfailing  strength 
and  a  nobly  creative  force  in  the  development  of  per- 
sonality itself. 

74 


THE  WINNING   OF  A  SOUL 

A  city  which  is  full  of  music  lovers  is  by  that  very 
fact  a  better  city  in  which  to  live,  for  the  lovers  of 
music  are  the  creators  of  music,  and  about  them  and 
summoned  by  them,  orchestras  are  built  and  supported, 
singers  gathered  together  and  wholesome  joy  and  spiritual 
gains  made  possible.  All  this  becomes  in  the  end  very 
concrete.  It  means  that  changed  men  are  living  in  a 
changed  world,  full  of  activities,  realities,  relationships 
which  would  never  for  a  moment  have  been  possible 
had  they  not  won  a  soul  for  music  and  in  so  winning 
their  soul  changed  not  only  themselves,  but  the  world  of 
which  they  are  a  part. 

What  is  true  of  music  is  true  of  books,  of  beauty,  of 
goodness,  comradeship  and  the  love  of  God.  We  send 
our  boys  and  girls  to  school,  we  teach  them  how  to 
read  and  write  and  think,  and  for  what?  That  they  may 
win  a  soul  for  literature,  become  comrades  of  the  poets, 
kindle  with  the  prophet's  passion,  recapitulate  the  past 
with  the  historian,  meditate  with  the  essayist  and  live 
with  the  novelist  and  the  dramatist  in  worlds  of  vera- 
cious insight  and  imagination.  The  classic  and  the 
hallowed  thus  become  their  welcome  guests.  Shake- 
speare's men  and  women  declare  to  them  the  tragedy 
of  irresolution,  or  lawless  ambition,  or  jealousy,  or  scorn 
—  or  better  still,  the  rewards  of  steadfastness  and  the 
unfailing  fruitions  of  love.  They  have  a  thousand 
friends  whom  the  seers  of  visions  have  called  out  of  the 
unseen  for  their  warning,  their  comfort  or  their  joy. 
They  come  into  an  immeasurably  increased  body  of 
spiritual  possession,  and  even  as  they  become  citizens 
of  the  world  of  books,  the  world  of  books  is  made  rich 
by  a  new  inhabitant;  for  just  as  a  soul  for  music  ex- 
presses itself  in  inner  and  outer  relationships,  so  a  soul 
for  books   not  only  enlarges  the  life  of  him  who  wins  it, 

75 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

but  challenges  the  creative  power  of  those  who  minister 
to  it,  and  so  a  real  world  is  created  which  in  the  end 
enriches  and  enlarges  our  intellectual  birthright  — 

"  A  real  world,  both  strong  and  good, 
Round  which  with  tendrils  strong  as  flesh  and  blood, 
Our  pleasures  and  our  pastimes  grow." 

These  are  only  outposts  of  the  territories  which  the 
soul  is  meant  to  occupy,  but  they  do  at  least  illustrate 
a  great  truth  which,  beginning  in  all  sorts  of  simple 
and  almost  unimportant  ways,  finally  manifests  itself 
in  the  supreme  unfoldings  of  life;  for  the  whole  task  of 
life  is  to  find  new  worlds  which  these  souls  of  ours  may 
possess,  and  to  furnish  to  the  manifold  realm  of  the 
Spirit  new  citizens.  We  begin  with  a  self  which  eats 
and  sleeps,  and  wakes  and  cries,  and  smiles  a  bit  and 
sleeps  again.  We  go  on  to  the  creation  of  selves  to 
whom  the  world  of  love  and  goodness,  truth  and  beauty, 
becomes  increasingly  meaningful,  and  in  whom  such 
qualities  become  real.  We  live  in  the  light  which  shines 
in  the  eyes  about  us,  we  are  made  rich  in  affection,  we 
extend  our  friendships,  we  dimly  discern  great  impera- 
tives of  right  and  wrong,  we  establish  their  thrones  in 
our  souls.  And  through  all  this  we  discern  the  mani- 
festation of  a  presence  still  more  deeply  interfused.  In 
the  practice  of  the  presence  of  God,  the  Unseen  and 
Eternal  becomes  more  real  to  us  than  all  the  little 
passing  show  of  time  and  sense.  Reverence  sets  up  its 
altars  in  our  souls,  devotion  hallows  our  prayers  and 
wings  aloft  our  songs  of  praise.  God  comes  to  us  in 
intimate  communions,  manifests  His  indwelling  power 
in  our  strength  and  our  steadfastness.  Character  tested 
by  temptation,  vindicated  in  victory,  made  strong  in 
vision,  great  in  gentleness  and  beautiful  in  love,  ripens 
like  heavenly  fruit  upon  the  Tree  of  Life.      All  the  better 

76 


THE   WINNING   OF  A  SOUL 

part  of  our  personality  is  established  and  enlarged.  We 
are  rich  in  an  inner  secret  wealth.  We  are  richer  still 
as  we  share  our  wealth  with  all  our  brethren.  We 
know  ourselves  to  be  a  part  of  all  that  is  and  yet  we 
know  ourselves  to  be  apart  from  all  that  is.  We  begin 
to  feel  dimly  that  our  true  life  does  not  depend  upon 
any  transient  earth-born  condition,  but  that  more  and 
more  we  are  being  detached  from  the  incidental  and 
related  to  the  unchanging. 

II.  Now  all  this  is  a  fruit  of  a  steadfast  patience. 
Such  development  as  this  is  no  light  achievement;  it 
is  the  whole  outcome  of  whatever  life  brings  to  us,  and 
all  that  we  ourselves  bring  to  life.  We  shall  achieve 
it  only  as  we  highly  resolve  by  the  grace  of  God  to 
make  whatever  befalls  us  tributary  to  our  true  spiritual 
wealth.  We  may  carry  away  from  every  battle-field,  as 
our  most  precious  spoil,  a  glorious  courage  and  a  daunt- 
less steadfastness,  we  may  through  the  magic  of  patience 
win  from  our  disappointment  a  gracious  serenity.  Ten- 
derness so  becomes  the  fruit  of  tears  and  sorrows,  and 
triumphant  trust  issues  out  of  problems  unsolved, 
heights  unsealed,  and  the  long  following  of  difficult  and 
shadowed  paths.  We  come  presently  to  the  place  where 
we  see  that  nothing  less  than  the  whole  full  force  of 
experience  is  great  enough  to  make  a  fully  ordered  soul. 
Just  as  every  harvest  field  is  somehow  the  expression 
of  all  the  seasons  with  their  wind  and  rain,  and  ampli- 
tudes of  summer  light  and  hard-bound  winter  bitterness, 
and  manifold  ministries  of  earth  and  sky  through  every 
changing  day,  so  the  soul  is  the  fruit  of  life  and  nothing 
else.  If  it  is  to  be  made  perfect,  there  is  nothing  we 
can  spare. 

We  have  indeed  the  promise  of  a  day  when  pain 
shall  be  no  more,  but  the  premature  dismissal  of  pain 

77 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

would    be    the   impoverishment   of   the   soul.      God    will 

some    day    wipe    away    all    tears,    but    a    tearless    world 

would  be  strangely  sterile  in   tremulous  tenderness  and 

healing  sympathies.     It  is  only  when  we  have  begun  to 

gather  up  these  fuller  meanings  of  our  experiences  that 

we  discern  the  worth  of  the  more  difficult  and  searching, 

but  in  the  end  we  see  the  light.     We  know  that  — 

"  Life  is  not  an  idle  ore, 
But  iron  dug  from  central  gloom, 
And  heated  hot  with  burning  fears. 
And  dipped  in  baths  of  hissing  tears, 
And  battered  with  the  shock  of  doom." 

III.  We  win  our  souls,  not  only  through  the  full 
spiritual  utilization  of  the  whole  experience  of  life,  but 
also,  through  a  kind  of  divine  contradiction,  only  as  we 
are  not  too  much  concerned  about  them.  There  is  a 
kind  of  holy  indirectness  about  getting  a  soul.  If  a 
man  would  win  a  soul,  says  Jesus,  let  him  be  willing  to 
lose  it,  —  let  him  lose  himself,  that  is,  in  tasks  and 
fidelities  and  redemptive  unselfishnesses.  All  the  worldly 
business  of  life  is  spiritually  fruitful,  we  have  only  to 
address  ourselves  to  it  in  a  noble  and  reverent  temper 
to  discern  that.  Every  great  occupation  is  twice  crea- 
tive. If  we  are  concerned  with  love  and  justice  and 
goodness,  with  the  dominion  of  truth,  with  the  en- 
thronement of  beauty,  if  we  seek  for  others  what  we 
pray  for  ourselves,  and  are  willing  ourselves  to  be 
impoverished  if  only  they  may  become  rich,  if  we  test 
every  outcome  of  the  day's  work  by  its  contribution  of 
well-being  to  a  weary  and  troubled  world,  if  we  make 
truth  our  day  star,  rejoice  in  beauty  and  seek  to  spread 
abroad  its  transforming  power,  if  love  be  established  as 
the  one  continuing  and  all-inclusive  temper,  if  goodness 
be  set  upon  a  throne  so  high  that  her  scepter  is  over  all 
our  works,   if   faith   guides   us   and   hope   calls   us   from 

78 


THE  WINNING   OF   A   SOUL 

height  to  height,  —  and  if  we  do  this  day  in  and  day 
out  as  God  calls  us  through  the  changing  years,  we 
shall  in  steadfastness  win  our  souls. 

IV.  There  is  yet  one  other  condition,  or  group  of 
conditions,  which  is  supreme.  We  need  definition, 
redemption,  re-enforcement:  —  definition,  because  with- 
out a  pattern  we  are  likely  to  go  sadly  astray,  redemption, 
because  we  have  so  sadly  gone  astray,  re-enforcement, 
because  we  cannot  prevail  in  our  own  strength  alone. 
How  shall  we  choose  the  true  self  out  of  all  the  mani- 
fold selves  which  seek  fulfilment  if  no  God-given  defini- 
tion of  true  spiritual  worth  is  vouchsafed  us?  There 
are  a  thousand  bypaths  along  this  Pilgrim's  Progress 
way  of  ours,  and  at  each  bypath  stands  a  partial, 
possible  self,  and  each  possible  self  says:  "  Come,  I  am 
what  you  are  meant  to  be.  You  will  find  joy  in  my 
occupations,  content  in  my  fellowships,  wealth  in  the 
search   after  my  treasures." 

Sometimes  the  path  down  which  they  invite  us  leads 
to  the  abyss,  sometimes  the  road  which  they  advise 
ends  nowhere,  leaving  us  all  weary  and  astray  ere  the 
day  is  well  begun.  Sometimes  these  guides  can  offer 
no  better  goal  than  Doubting  Castle,  no  better  com- 
radeship than  Giant  Despair.  Oftener  still  they  urge 
us  to  some  partial  good,  some  little  accomplishment,  so 
wholly  inadequate  that  when  we  have  gained  what  they 
offer,  we  are  still  poor,  and  when  we  have  entered  into 
their  pitiful  peace  we  are  still  restless.  There  is  only 
one  road  and  one  guide  which  a  man  ought  to  follow, 
and  the  guide  himself  is  both  guide  and  road  and 
Saviour. 

It  would  be  desperately  unjust  in  the  face  of  what 
men  have  done  and  been,  who  have  never  known  or 
followed  him,  to  say  that  outside  his  discipleship  there 

79 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

is  no  true  spiritual  life.  Every  great  religion  has  borne 
fruit  in  fidelities,  devotions  and  gentlenesses.  Other 
faiths  have  had  their  calendared  saints,  and  those  who 
never  knew  his  name,  following  some  gleam  of  that 
light  which  lighteth  every  man  who  cometh  into  the 
world,  have  manifested  true  spiritual  qualities,  but  as 
compared  with  the  spiritual  fruitions  of  Christianity 
how  poor  they  have  been!  The  vast  secret  of  it  es- 
capes analysis,  but  there  is  nothing  so  wholly  beyond 
debate  as  that  in  Jesus  Christ  a  new  spiritual  quality 
came  into  the  world,  and  that  from  the  first  those  who 
have  loved  and  served  and  followed  him  have  won  such 
souls  as  have  given  a  new  meaning  to  every  ancient 
spiritual  quality,  a  new  perfection  to  every  virtue.  His 
gospel  meets  our  every  need,  its  great  assurances  of 
forgiveness  give  us  heart  to  try  again,  its  manifestations 
of  redemption  pluck  men  as  brands  from  the  burning, 
lift  them  up  from  the  miry  clay  and  set  their  feet  upon 
the  rock.  And  somehow,  in  and  through  it  all,  there  is 
secured  a  kind  of  spiritual  overplus,  a  fulness  of  spiritual 
development,  warmth  and  tenderness  and  wealth  of  love 
and  goodness  which  are  the  continuations  in  our  little 
broken  lives,  of  his  divine  perfection,  the  reincarnation 
of  himself. 

V.  Given  then  Christ  and  his  Cross,  and  the  assur- 
ance of  God's  fatherhood  which  lives  in  them  and 
shines  through  them,  given  the  possibilities  and  prophe- 
sies of  each  time-born  self,  given  life  with  its  tasks,  its 
battles,  its  unfoldings,  its  transforming  experiences,  given 
this  world  of  ours,  as  the  stage  of  our  pilgrimage,  given 
ministrant  days  and  loving  comradeships  and  truth  and 
beauty,  music  by  which  to  march,  and  the  Dayspring 
from  on  high  across  the  hills  of  time,  and  in  our  stead- 
fastness we  shall  win  our  souls.     This  is  what    life  and 

80 


THE  WINNING   OF  A  SOUL 

time  are  for.  If  this  world  of  ours  were  meant  for  joy 
alone,  its  conditions  are  hard  to  justify;  if  it  were 
meant  for  petty  success  it  is  not  worth  the  cost;  if  it 
were  meant  for  smug  well-being  it  would  better  never 
have  been  created;  but  if  it  be  meant  for  a  place  in 
which  to  win  a  soul,  —  then  whatever  worlds,  tethered 
to  other  suns,  are  lost  in  far-flung  constellations,  ours  is 
the  peer  of  them  all. 

The  proof  of  this  is  not  far  to  seek.  We  have  all 
seen  it  again  and  again  in  the  lives  of  the  strong  and 
good.  We  have  seen  the  noble  fruition  of  their  lives, 
we  have  seen  them  build  their  visions  in  stable  forms, 
make  their  spiritual  passion  manifest  in  a  better,  braver 
world,  and  through  their  unselfishness  open  doors  of 
light  and  hope  to  the  weary  and  heavy  laden.  We  have 
seen  them  as  those  who  have  here  no  abiding  place, 
testify  to  an  heavenly  citizenship.  We  have  seen  them 
make  ready  without  fear  or  doubt  for  the  last,  long 
journey,  we  have  seen  them  pass  through  the  shadow 
as  those  assured  of  ulterior  and  undying  light,  and  when 
at  last  they  have  left  us  we  have  heard  — 

"  As  from  beyond  the  limit  of  the  world, 
Like  the  last  echo  born  of  a  great  cry, 
Sounds,  as  if  some  fair  city  were  one  voice, 
Around  a  king  returning  from  his  wars." 

Any  earth  upon  which  such  as  these  walk  is  conse- 
crated by  their  touch,  and  any  journey  at  the  end  of 
which  they  come  into  such  manhood  and  womanhood 
is  justified  in  the  counsels  of  the  Eternal.  I  care  not 
what  earth's  tears  and  cries  and  battles  are,  if  out  of 
it  all  men  win  their  souls,  serenely  face  the  sunsets  of 
time  with  eyes  which  see  beyond  our  little  brooding 
shadows  the  morning  of  an  ampler  day,  and  come 
down  to   the  edge  of  dividing  waters  rich   in  graces  of 

81 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

the  Spirit  fit  to  make  them  citizens  of  any  world  of 
love  and  truth  and  beauty,  and  richer  still  in  what 
treasures  they  have  left  behind  in  the  souls  of  others. 
In  such  consummations  as  these  our  little  world  has 
served  its  divinely  foreordained  purpose,  and  God  may 
crush  it,  if  He  will,  into  dust  again,  and  scatter  it 
abroad  through  azure  spaces,  as  a  sower  casts  his  seed, 
for  new  eonian  growths:  and  none  may  question  this 
divine  economy,  for  in  the  souls  of  such  as  these  He  has 
already  gathered  an  imperishable  harvest. 


82 


VII 
THE  TIDES   OF  THE  SPIRIT 

**  And  after  he  had  sent  the  multitudes  away  he  went  up  into  the  mountain 
apart  to  pray." —  Matthew  14  :  23. 

This  revealing  sentence  is  a  kind  of  interlude  in  a 
narrative  rich  in  almost  every  aspect  of  the  ministry 
of  Jesus.  The  chapter  begins  with  the  story  of  the 
tragic  death  of  John  the  Baptist,  beheaded  in  prison 
at  a  woman's  caprice,  a  martyr  to  supreme  moral  stead- 
fastness, afid  goes  on  to  tell  us  how  Jesus,  upon  the  news 
of  John's  death,  withdrew  to  a  desert  place  and  how  the 
multitudes  followed  him  there  on  foot  from  the  cities; 
how  he  taught  them  and  healed  them  and  fed  them  and 
poured  out  himself  for  them  in  an  endless  fulness  of  love. 
All  that  life  may  ask  of  action,  compassion  or  service 
he  offered;  and  then  because  there  was  a  great  need 
upon  him  of  rest  and  re-empowerment  he  sent  the 
multitudes  away,  dismissed  his  disciples  and  sought  the 
solitude  of  the  mountain  where  he  might  be  alone  with 
God. 

Even  he  who  had  such  secret  communion  with  his 
Father  God  as  no  one  else  has  ever  had,  and  spoke  and 
loved  and  served  out  of  a  divine  fulness  of  power, 
needed  from  time  to  time  to  re-collect  his  soul  and  gather 
back  unto  himself  again  from  his  Father  what  he  had 
spent  in  making  manifest  the  Father's  love.  It  is  as  if 
for  a  moment  the  veil  were  lifted  and  we  were  permitted 
to  share  the  secret  of  Jesus.  He  fitted  himself  for  end- 
less and  exhaustless  activities  by  lonely  vigils  and  secret 

83 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

prayer.  His  holy  power  flowed  down  from  mountain 
heights  of  divine  communion.  It  is  always  so.  No  one 
lives  greatly  who  does  not  live  out  of  great  commu- 
nions. No  one  has  power  with  man  who  does  not  first 
of  all  prevail  with  God.  Jesus  Christ  in  this,  as  in  all 
else,  reveals  in  a  supreme  and  luminous  way  the  laws 
and  conditions  of  all  triumphant  life. 

For  life,  as  James  Martineau  once  said,  in  a  sermon 
to  which  this  sermon  is  much  in  debt,  like  the  sea,  has 
its  ebbing  and  flowing  tides.  Periodicity  is  the  law  of  all 
life  and  growth,  the  pulse-beat  of  the  power,  the  spirit 
of  God  in  His  universe.  Day  and  night,  summer  and 
winter,  growth  and  decay,  aye,  and  life  and  death  itself, 
are  but  the  rhythmic  alternation  of  a  power  which  acts 
only  to  rest,  and  rests  only  to  act  again.  We  ourselves 
are  subject  to  the  same  law.  Alternating  functions  are 
the  very  basis  of  all  physical  life.  Breathing  is  a  rhythm 
in  answer  to  which  the  healing  tides  of  the  air  touch 
the  life  current  with  their  quickening  power  and  bear 
away  what  clogs  and  burdens  it.  The  rhythm  of  the 
heart  is  attuned  to  the  rhythm  of  respiration;  pulse-beat 
by  pulse-beat  the  current  of  life  flows  on,  and  if  it  be 
interrupted  only  for  an  instant  what  is  broken  can  never 
be  made  whole  again.  There  are  ebbing  and  flowing 
tides  of  vitality.  Once  in  the  24  hours  our  physical 
forces  are  at  the  highest;  once  in  the  24  hours  they  are 
at  the  ebb  —  usually  just  before  dawn.  It  is  more  than 
likely  that  there  are  other  cycles  of  ebbing  and  flowing 
power,  more  difficult  to  trace  but  none  the  less  real. 
If  we  observed  ourselves  carefully  we  should  probalily 
find  once  in  the  week  a  peak  of  power  up  to  which  the 
whole  week  leads  us.  Recent  tabulations  of  human 
efficiency  gathered  from  the  records  of  factories  paying 
by   piece   work   show   a   rhythm   extending   through    the 

84 


THE  TIDES   OF  THE  SPIRIT 

year.  May  and  October  are  the  peak  seasons  in  our 
northern  climate;  midsummer  and  midwinter  points  of 
vital  depression.  So  we  keep  time  with  the  very  seasons 
and  our  strength  ebbs  and  flows  in  answer  to  the  chang- 
ing stations  of  the  earth  itself. 

Mental  capacity  is  subject  to  the  same  alternation.  It 
rises  and  falls  periodically  and  there  is  a  point  beyond 
which  it  cannot  be  forced.  Then  the  mind  begins  to 
yield  under  the  strain  put  upon  it  and  we  lose  com- 
mand over  our  mental  resources.  It  is  as  if  the  batteries 
having  been  discharged  demanded  time  and  opportunity 
for  re-accumulation  of  energy.  We  have  only  to  study 
the  working  of  our  own  minds  to  come  upon  the  laws 
by  which  we  are  individually  governed;  after  we  have 
discovered  them  we  disobey  them  at  our  peril.  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  could  not  maintain  great  mental  activity 
for  more  than  two  hours  at  a  time.  No  matter  what 
he  was  doing  —  whether  speaking,  writing,  or  visiting 
with  his  friends  —  the  end  of  the  two-hour  period  was 
marked  by  such  lassitude  and  weariness  as  to  make  it 
often  necessary  for  him  to  excuse  himself  and  retire  for 
rest. 

The  soul  also  has  its  tidal  laws.  They  are  more 
subtle  and  have  beyond  doubt  a  vaster  movement,  but 
they  are  not  unrelated  to  all  we  have  been  considering. 
We  discern  in  ourselves  alternations  of  moral  force. 
There  are  seasons  when  temptations  find  us  as  it  were 
disarmed,  and  when  we  surrender  to  some  "  drive  " 
which  in  our  stronger  moments  we  could  easily  repulse. 
I  suspect  if  we  took  minute  and  long-continued  account 
of  our  souls  we  should  find  a  periodic  return  of  im- 
patience, fretfulness,  anger  or  unworthy  desire,  a  periodic 
relaxation  of  conscience  and  self-control,  and  should 
discover  on  the  other  hand  seasons  in  which    we    live 

85 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

in  a  strong  and  self-contained  spiritual  serenity,  ade- 
quate to  all  our  duties,  patient,  generous,  self-restrained 
and  master  of  the  lower,  meaner  forces  which  besiege 
our  moral  integrity. 

Nay,  I  think  beyond  and  above  all  this  there  are  tides 
of  communion  with  God.  We  have  our  seasons  of  faith 
and  certainty  —  then  God  seems  very  real  and  very 
near  to  us.  Prayer  is  a  glad  and  fruitful  exercise  of  the 
soul,  and  we  discern  beyond  all  lesser  things  the  Divine 
Presence  and  hear  above  all  other  voices  the  music  of 
the  Heavenly  voice.  There  are  other  seasons  when  we 
are  touched  by  what  the  mystic  calls  the  "black  night 
of  the  soul."  We  are  much  oppressed  by  doubt  and  our 
certainties  are  clouded.  The  Psalms  themselves  are 
always  expressing  it  —  this  alternation  of  vision  and 
becloudedness,  of  light  and  darkness,  of  faith  and  doubt. 
Rarely  sensitive  men  and  women  who  live  much  in  the 
life  of  the  spirit,  and  who  attend  much  to  their  own 
spiritual  states,  have  in  all  their  biographies  left  us  such 
records  of  these  alternations  of  spiritual  experiences  as 
to  leave  us  no  room  to  doubt  that  the  soul  itself  has 
its  ebbing  and  flowing  tides;  now  rising  to  meet  the 
power  of  God  and  now  flowing  away  in  weariness  and 
loneliness. 

What  is  the  law  of  our  individual  life  is  also  the  law 
of  our  common  life.  From  time  to  time  there  are  happy 
periods  upon  which  all  that  is  best  in  our  corporate  life 
seem  to  converge.  Then,  for  a  little,  the  nations  dwell 
in  brotherhood,  the  poor  are  sought  out  and  cared  for, 
moral  idealisms  lie  like  light  along  our  horizons,  the 
poets  sing  for  us,  and  the  masters  of  thought  and 
vision  hearten  us  with  their  profound  messages,  great 
statesmen  lead  the  peoples,  and  the  fulness  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God  seems  not  too  far  away.    And  then   the 

86 


THE  TIDES   OF  THE  SPIRIT 

tides  begin  to  ebb  and  we  slip  back  into  fear  and  dis- 
trust and  strife  and  moral  blindness. 

If  life  then  is  subject  to  such  alternations  as  these,  if 
we  do  but  obey  in  all  we  are  and  do,  some  hidden  heart 
of  power  whose  measured  beats  are  registered  not  only 
in  the  rising  and  falling  of  a  single  life  in  a  single  day, 
but  in  the  very  on-going  of  humanity  itself,  we  shall 
do  well  to  consider  the  deep  signification  of  it  all  and 
find  out  if  we  can  how  the  ebbing  tide  of  life  may  some- 
how be  so  followed  and  directed  as  to  secure  for  us  a 
new  empowerment  and  afford  us  new  points  of  depar- 
ture; for  the  secret  of  prevailing  power  is  more  nearly 
in  the  utilization  of  the  ebbing  than  in  the  mastery  of 
the  flowing  tide.  If  our  tides  of  relaxation  lead  us 
nowhere  but  to  weariness  and  confusion  then  life  is 
always  undoing  itself;  what  is  woven  in  the  light  is 
unravelled  in  the  darkness,  and  we  do  but  return,  after 
each  little  seeming  gain,  weary  and  disillusioned,  a  little 
less  strong  and  a  little  less  confident,  until  in  the  end 
the  ebbing  tides  bear  us  out  through  the  shadows  into 
waters  dark  with  the  mystery  of  death  —  and  our  brief 
day  is  done, 

I  would  dwell  upon  this,  I  say,  for  the  hope  of  any 
kind  of  strong  and  glowing  life  lies  in  our  power  to 
utilize  this  rhythm  of  the  spirit,  in  our  power  to  gain 
in  our  times  of  withdrawal  not  only  strength  enough  to 
carry  us  to  the  old  levels  but  strength  to  carry  us 
beyond  them.  We  must  believe  that  there  is  some 
purpose  in  a  process  so  universal,  some  profound  mean- 
ing in  a  law  which  knows  no  exception.  The  most 
significant  thing  in  a  man's  life,  therefore,  is  that  to 
which  he  returns  when  strength  has  spent  itself.  Where 
does  he  go  for  re-empowerment?  When  the  batteries 
have   spent   their  energy,  how  and   by  whom    are    they 

87 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

re-charged  ?  When  we  are  conscious  of  relaxations  — 
which  at  once  defeat  and  warn  us  —  where  do  we  look 
for  rest  and  healing?  Into  what  hidden  places  do  our 
retreating  tides  withdraw?  Upon  what  centers  does  life 
collect  itself  anew? 

We  give  various  answers  for  such  questions  as  these  — 
we  children  of  ebbing  and  flowing  powers.  Some  of  us 
possess  no  power  of  recuperation  at  all.  Once  we  have 
spent  ourselves  we  are  thereafter  of  little  more  account 
than  the  discarded  batteries  which  from  time  to  time 
you  take  out  of  your  motors  and  throw  away.  The 
world  is  full  of  men  and  women  who  are  failures  be- 
cause they  have  never  learned  how  to  renew  themselves. 
What  little  knowledge  and  force  they  had  to  begin  with, 
once  spent,  is  gone  forever;  and  thereafter  they  are  only 
driftwood  upon  the  currents  of  life.  In  business  such 
men  fail  early,  become  dependent  upon  the  forbearance 
of  their  friends,  are  held  to  their  places  perhaps  by  the 
structure  of  society,  or  custom,  or  habit,  or  some  such 
thing  as  that,  but  without  any  real  power  in  themselves; 
falling  away,  if  the  supports  which  restrain  them  are 
by  any  chance  removed,  into  the  vast  body  of  the 
hopeless  and  well-nigh  submerged,  to  be  eventually  like 
some  waterlogged  ship  sunk  in  some  storm. 

Such  business  failure  is  closely  akin  to  moral  failure. 
We  have  only  to  cast  up  our  own  experiences  to  remind 
ourselves  of  a  long  and  unhappy  list  of  men  and  women 
who  have  never  been  able  to  meet  the  onset  of  tempta- 
tion, or  to  oppose  a  brave  front  to  the  drive  of  evil  de- 
sire, or  in  general  to  meet  with  any  kind  of  sustaining  force 
the  powers  which  a  world  like  ours  oppose  to  our  progress. 

More  subtly  still  we  may  fail  in  faith  and  vision  and 
confidence  and  hope,  still  indeed  keeping  our  wonted 
places,    going   about   our   conventional   occupations,    and 


THE  TIDES   OF  THE   SPIRIT 

yet  somehow  so  lacking  in  real  spiritual  force  as  not 
only  to  count  for  nothing  in  the  great  spiritual  enter- 
prises but  to  have  really  no  inner  life  at  all  worth 
naming.  There  is  not  a  church  anywhere  which  has 
not  upon  its  membership  list  name  after  name  which 
represents  nothing  but  spiritual  defeat.  Such  as  these 
began  with  a  little  measure  of  devotion  and  power,  but 
their  devotion  soon  spent  itself  and  their  power  hardly 
outlasted  their  first  identification  with  the  Church; 
without  ever  being  either  sorely  tempted  or  greatly 
tried  or  having  spent  themselves  in  any  wearing  kind 
of  service,  they  have  merely  become  names  and  nothing 
more.  It  is  this  which  makes  a  Church  roll-call  one 
of  the  most  unhappy  exercises  in  which  a  church  can 
possibly  engage. 

There  are  others  who  are  borne  of  their  ebbing  tides 
to  the  false  and  misleading.  Such  as  these  quench  their 
thirst  at  poisoned  springs.  They  seek  unholy  pleasures; 
they  depend  upon  narcotic  drugs  and  drinks;  they 
stimulate  themselves  with  dissipation  and  are  in  the  end 
more  weary  and  helpless  than  they  were  to  begin  with. 
The  feverish  life  of  any  great  city,  with  its  "white  ways  " 
which  are  not  white  at  all  but  blackly  overlaid  with 
moral  shadows,  is  all  a  testimony  to  the  mistaken  ways 
in  which  we  seek  to  be  made  whole  again.  Who  are 
those  for  whom  we  open  theatre  after  theatre,  and  con- 
trive excitement  after  excitement,  whose  luxury  of  food 
and  dress  and  play  and  drink  is  sheerly  criminal?  These 
are  they  who  can  find  for  their  weariness  nothing  better 
than  an  hour's  forgetfulness,  and  for  their  need  of  peace 
nothing  better  than  a  hectic  distraction  and  for  the 
hunger  of  their  souls  nothing  better  than  the  husks  the 
swine  did  eat.  If  we  have  nothing  better  to  go  apart 
to  than  such  as  this,  we  are  poor  indeed. 

89 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

Many  of  us  seek  to  re-collect  ourselves  in  outdoor  life 
and  physical  exercise.  The  gospel  of  exercise  has  never 
been  so  preached  and  followed  since  the  high  days  of 
Athens  as  it  is  in  America  today.  And  there  is  much 
to  be  said  for  all  this.  Ideals  of  physical  fitness  are 
working  a  real  revolution  in  our  life.  They  compel 
temperance  in  meat  and  drink;  they  enforce  an  almost 
austere  regime  of  life.  The  benefit  of  it  all  is  beyond 
debate.  We  are  securing  new  physical  foundations  for 
the  life  of  the  future.  And  yet,  if  we  have  nothing 
better  to  which  to  go  apart  than  the  country  club,  the 
gymnasium  or  even  the  sea,  the  hills,  and  the  forest, 
we  are  failing  to  reach  and  drink  of  the  truly  "  living 
waters";  unlcos  our  ebbing  tides  carry  us  to  something 
better  than  such  occupations  and  disciplines,  we  are  still 
far  from  the  deepest  and  the  best.  The  body  is  the 
temple  of  God  and  it  is  much  to  keep  the  temple  clean 
and  wholesome,  strong  and  beautiful;  but  if  there  be 
no  altars  there,  no  holy  of  holies,  no  Shekinah  which 
the  brooding  wonder  of  God  makes  sacred,  then  after 
all  the  temple  is  no  true  temple,  and  its  inner  sanctu- 
aries are  pathetically  bare  of  what  they  were  meant  to 
contain   and   reveal. 

Time  would  fail  me  if  I  sought  to  speak  of  other 
sources  of  power  and  recreation  to  which  we  turn  for 
strength.  Music,  art,  literature  have  values  and  mean- 
ings which  cannot  be  easily  exaggerated,  but  they  are 
not  enough.  The  soul  cannot  live  out  of  symphonies  and 
picture  galleries,  or  marbles  and  bronzes,  or  out  of  books 
alone,  —  even  though  the  great  be  our  friends  and  the 
wisest  be  our  guides.  There  is  something  beyond  all 
this.  Unless  the  soul  return  upon  God  we  shall  never 
have  come  into  the  true  secret  of  renewal. 

Jesus    went    apart    into    the    mountain    to    pray.      He 

90 


THE  TIDES   OF  THE  SPIRIT 

loved  the  mountains  or  he  would  not  have  sought  their 
serene  uplands;  but  the  strength  of  the  hills  is  but  a 
dream  if  they  do  not  carry  us  beyond  their  little  sum- 
mits to  the  God  from  whence  cometh  our  help.  He 
knew  and  loved  the  wonder  of  the  outer  world,  watched 
with  discerning  vision  the  pageant  of  the  seasons,  and 
saw  in  the  flight  of  a  bird  or  the  blooming  of  a  flower 
a  witness  to  his  Father's  sheltering  care.  But  for  him 
the  outer  world  were  empty  if  he  did  not  there  discover 
his  Father's  presence  and  pass  through  nature  up  to 
God;  he  loved  all  wholesome  human  fellowship  but  there 
were  seasons  when  even  his  best  friends  had  nothing  to 
offer  and  aloneness  with  God  became  as  necessary  for 
him  as  light  and  air.  His  ebbing  power,  his  sense  of 
weariness  and  need  carried  him  back  to  God  as  un- 
avoidably as  the  tides  are  withdrawn  upon  the  sea. 
He  went  apart  to  pray  and  in  prayer  and  communion 
his  purposes  were  rebaptized,  his  will  charged  anew 
with  the  strength  of  God,  his  love  with  an  infinite  ten- 
derness, and  his  whole  personality  refilled  with  mystic 
infloodings  of  the  divine,  which  made  him  the  God 
man  and  God  to  men. 

If  even  Jesus  Christ  were  thus  dependent  upon  times 
of  withdrawals  and  upon  spiritual  communion  and  em- 
powerment, what  shall  we  say  of  ourselves?  If  he  did 
not  dare  to  stop  short  of  his  Father  God,  as  he  sought 
to  re-collect  Himself  for  the  difficult  and  the  sacrificial, 
will  anything  less  than  God  suffice  for  us?  We  must 
refuse  to  be  halted  until  we  have  come  back  to  the 
divine.  Pleasure,  athletic  discipline  and  culture  are  but 
broken  cisterns  unless  God  fill  them  —  and  a  generation 
which  has  no  hidden  source  of  strength  beyond  what 
these  supply  will  fail  in  the  highest,  and  will  be  puzzled 
as  we  are  puzzled  today  by  the  gradual  falling  away  of 

91 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

the  highest  efficiency  in  spite  of  all  our  endeavor  to 
secure  it.  We  are  always  talking  efficiency  and  we  are 
but  indifferently  efficient.  We  are  preaching  discipline 
but  we  are  undisciplined.  We  have  a  vast  deal  to  say 
about  culture  but  the  fine  flower  of  it  blooms  but  rarely, 
and  our  weariness  deepens  with  all  our  endeavor  after 
rest.  We  have  stopped  short  of  God  and  we  shall  have 
no  peace  till  we  return  to  Him. 

I  would  not  have  all  this  lose  itself  in  vague  generality. 
It  is  tremendously  concrete,  the  most  practical  thing  in 
the  world.  Wise  physicians  are  beginning  to  discover 
the  source  of  nervous  and  mental  mal-adjustments  in 
souls  which  are  not  at  peace  with  themselves.  The 
soul,  like  the  body,  may  bear  for  years  the  scar  of  an 
ancient  wound  and  be  ignorant  of  its  own  undoing,  until 
by  patient  analysis,  by  processes  which  are  sometimes 
akin  to  the  surgeon's  knife,  the  old  sore  is  laid  bare  and 
cleared  away,  and  health  and  power  begin  to  re-possess 
the  whole  of  life. 

We  are  beginning  to  discover  that  faith  in  God  is  a 
mighty  reinforcement  in  every  kind  of  sickness.  The 
patient  who  meets  the  skill  of  his  physician  with,  as  his 
own  contribution,  a  confidence  in  an  under-girding 
strength  which  makes  for  health  and  well-being  and 
asks  only  to  be  given  opportunity  in  order  to  do  its 
blessed  and  healing  work,  is  already  half  cured.  There 
is  a  kind  of  mental  serenity,  which  is  nothing  other  than 
a  trust  in  truth  and  the  power  of  it,  which  is  the  secret 
of  all  strong,  intellectual  life.  Our  very  passion  for 
physical  well-being  leads  us  back  to  physical  laws  which 
need  only  to  be  discovered  and  trusted  in  to  do  their 
perfect  work  with  us.  Beneath  our  feverish,  economic 
life  there  are  economic  laws  which  need  only  to  be 
followed   and    rested   in    to   lead   us    to   industrial   well- 

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THE  TIDES   OF  THE  SPIRIT 

being,  and  deeper  than  all  this  is  the  rest  of  the  soul 
in  a  power  which  will  not  fail  us  in  our  sorest  need; 
a  love  and  compassion  shepherding  us  even  through  the 
valley  of  the  shadow  and  edging  the  darkest  cloud  with 
the  promise  of  light  beyond. 

I  do  not  see  how  we  can  live  or  work  at  all,  in  a 
world  like  ours,  without  believing  in  a  power  mightier 
than  our  own  which  makes  for  righteousness,  in  a  love 
which  our  want  of  brotherhood  can  never  defeat,  in  a 
patient  goodness,  inexhaustible  and  unresting,  which 
moves  through  human  strife  and  blindness  toward  its 
own  enthronement.  There  is  nowhere  any  sustaining 
strength  or  healing  process  which  is  not  the  fringe  of 
the  garment  of  God.  We  shall  never  have  come  back 
to  the  ultimate  strength  until  we  return  to  Him. 

This  is  half  the  truth.  The  other  half  is  this:  We 
are  never  really  renewed  until  we  are  renewed  in  our 
souls.  You  may  call  the  soul  what  you  will;  I  do  not 
know  how  to  define  it.  You  may  call  it  our  true  per- 
sonality, our  best  and  enduring  self;  you  may  call  it 
the  self  we  were  meant  to  be;  you  may  call  it  what 
you  please;  but  I  do  know  that  all  self-conscious  life 
deepens  down  into  something  profounder  than  knowledge, 
mightier  than  will,  more  glowing  than  love;  out  of  which 
knowledge,  and  will,  and  emotion  lift  themselves  as 
mountains  out  of  the  depths  of  the  sea.  This  is  the 
soul  into  which  we  live  and  out  of  which  we  live. 
Knowledge  is  deceitful  and  will  fails  of  its  high  purpose 
and  love  is  capricious  and  shadowed  if  the  soul  be  not 
strong  and  steadfast.  It  is  not  independent  of  the  for- 
tunes of  the  body,  but  the  soul  is  more,  than  the  body; 
and  until  we  be  there  rested  and  renewed,  all  else  is 
idle.  The  great  approaches  to  the  heart  of  life  are  not 
through  sense  but  spirit,  and  whatever  does  not  spiritu- 

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THE  GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

ally  reach  and  re-collect  us  leaves  the  depths  un- 
touched. 

Every  age,  of  course,  has  its  own  gospel  of  which  it 
stands  most  in  need.  There  have  been  times  when  the 
inner  life  has  been  far  too  much  dwelt  upon  and  men 
failed  to  leave  the  altar  and  the  cloister  for  service 
and  human  fellowship  and  redemptive  contact  with  the 
world.  No  need  to  preach  a  gospel  like  this  to  a  time 
like  that;  for  then  they  stood  most  in  need  of  that  in 
which  we  most  abound;  but  we,  because  we  are  held 
captive  by  outer  things,  seeking  to  save  ourselves  in 
deeds  and  occupations,  because  Martha  and  not  Mary 
is  our  patron  saint,  we  need  to  hear  and  heed  the  gospel 
of  a  return  upon  God.  It  is  harder  to  preach  than  the 
gospel  of  social  service  or  physical  exercise,  but,  it  is 
immensely  imperative  and  we  shall  find  half  the  diffi- 
culties of  it  disappear  when  we  begin  to  put  it  in  prac- 
tice. 

Prayer  is  not  beyond  the  reach  of  any  child  of  God. 
We  may  not  seek  the  mountains,  as  did  our  Master, 
but  before  the  day  is  done  we  may  find  some  place 
apart  with  our  Father,  and  though  our  words  be  halting 
and  our  hearts  fail  us,  directly  we  begin  to  pour  out  our 
needs  to  Him  we  shall  know  that  prayer  is  no  mere  self- 
delusion  but  a  blessed  reality  in  which  spirit  with  spirit 
may  meet.  Faith  is  not  so  easy  as  it  used  to  be,  but  a 
steadfast  trust  in  a  sustaining  love  and  goodness  which 
undergird  and  possess  us  is  not  beyond  the  power  of 
any  one  of  us.  A  sense  of  the  presence  of  God  is  not 
always  easy  to  gain,  but  the  consciousness  of  cooperation 
in  thought  and  purpose,  love  and  deed,  with  our  Father 
God  may  be  achieved  by  anyone  who  is  willing  to  fall 
back  in  every  act  of  life  upon  those  deeper  realities 
which  constantly  come  out  to  meet  and  possess  us.     The 

94 


THE  TIDES   OF  THE   SPIRIT 

worship  of  your  Church,  its  spiritual  offices  and  sacra- 
ments, are  all  doors  through  which  you  may  enter  into  a 
spiritual  communion.  We  have  only  to  take  up  more 
faithfully  and  more  earnestly  the  religious  life  to  which 
none  of  us  are  strange  and  to  which  all  of  us  are  com- 
mitted, to  discover  that  there  is  reality  in  it,  and  power 
in  it,  and  God  in  it,  —  and  so  we  come  to  Him. 

The  very  season  itself  will  help  us  if  we  are  willing. 
Lent  is  no  accident,  nor  a  mere  ecclesiastical  process. 
It  is  rooted  deep  in  the  needs  of  the  soul,  in  the  experi- 
ences of  the  Church.  It  is  the  creation  of  the  tides  of 
the  spirit  in  their  return  upon  God.  It  comes  at  a 
time  when  we  are  weary  of  manifold  activities  and  when 
we  would  escape  for  a  little  the  world  and  its  occupa- 
tions. It  is  rich  in  association  and  suggestion.  Its  very 
exercises  and  disciplines  have  their  healing  values.  It 
asks  us  to  simplify  life,  to  restrain  its  self-indulgences, 
to  exalt  the  things  of  the  spirit  and  to  subordinate  the 
things  of  the  flesh.  It  asks  us  to  substitute  devotion  for 
pleasure  and  spiritual  loyalty  for  self-interest  and  wor- 
ship for  diversion.  It  opens  for  us  a  door  through  which 
we  need  to  pass  into  realities  without  which  we  cannot 
live;  and  in  all  this  we  have  Christ,  for  our  comrade  and 
our  example  and  the  kindling  suggestion  of  his  devoted 
life  to  add  depth  and  power  to  our  own  devotion. 

I  think  there  was  never  a  season  which  so  demanded 
of  us  a  new  return  upon  God  as  this  Lenten  season, 
1917.  The  sorrow  and  weariness  and  perplexity  of  our 
world  is  with  us  day  and  night;  the  cry  of  it  reaches 
beyond  the  stars.  I  think  the  world  will  lose  its  reason 
if  it  does  not  discover  its  God.  And  we,  who  are  a 
little  part  of  a  vaster  fellowship,  can  render  no  truer 
service  to  Christ  and  his  world  than  to  seek,  in  the 
season  which  lies  immediately  ahead  of  us,  some  clearer 

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THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

knowledge  of  his  will  whereby  to  imitate  him  more 
faithfully  and  to  serve  him  more  loyally.  We  can  render 
no  greater  service  to  our  time  or  more  worthily  prepare 
ourselves  for  whatever  the  future  holds  for  us  than  to 
go  apart  with  God. 

Twice  in  each  twenty-four  hours  the  tides  of  the 
ocean,  soiled  and  discolored  through  their  contact  with  our 
shores,  withdraw  themselves  into  the  bosom  of  the  deep, 
there  to  be  cleansed  and  rebaptized  in  the  clean  and  salt 
immensity  of  the  sea,  there  to  hear  again  the  call  of  the 
sun,  the  moon,  and  the  stars,  and  so  cleansed  to  come 
back  with  a  blessed  power  upon  the  coasts  which  are 
unlovely  without  them,  and  are  kept  sweet  only  by  their 
healing  contact. 

Life  is  like  that.  For  we  too  are  much  stained  through 
our  contact  with  occupation  or  pleasure  and  all  the  coast 
of  reality.  The  withdrawing  tides  of  our  souls  need  to 
be  gathered  again  into  the  clean,  the  vast,  and  the  un- 
failing; there  to  be  rebaptized  in  goodness  and  vision; 
there  to  hear  the  voice  of  the  eternal,  to  answer  to  the 
compulsion  of  the  Unseen. 

Out  of  such  a  communion  as  this  we  shall  return  again 
to  our  duties  and  our  relationships,  healed  and  re- 
collected; to  achieve  —  please  God  —  in  some  vaster 
advance  some  new  victory  for  the  Kingdom  of  Christ 
and  to  release  some  deepened  measure  of  love  and  power 
and  goodness. 


96 


VIII 
A  GOOD  CONSCIENCE 

"  But  the  end  of  the  charge  is  love  out  of  a  pure  heart  and  a  good  conscience 
and  faith  unfeigned." — /  Timothy  1  :S. 

Words  ride  like  ships  upon  the  tides  of  time  and  rise 
and  fall  with  the  changing  years.  Today  a  word  is 
dominant  and  in  its  dominance  testifies  to  the  ideal 
and  convictions  of  an  age.  Tomorrow  it  has  fallen  from 
its  high  estate  and  its  diminished  use  testifies  to  changed 
insights  and  convictions  in  the  souls  of  men.  Just  now 
we  are  apparently  in  the  way  of  retiring  conscience  from 
its  once  dominant  station.  We  lay  no  such  emphasis 
upon  it  as  did  our  fathers,  nor  do  we  so  constantly 
employ  it  as  one  of  the  approved  weapons  of  our  moral 
welfare. 

It  is  impossible  to  overestimate  the  significance  of 
this,  for  it  means  that  we  are  living  in  new  regions  of 
idealism.  Our  very  center  of  moral  gravity  is  chang- 
ing; we  are  seeking  new  polar  stars.  There  are  in  the 
main,  I  think,  three  reasons  why  we  are  forgetting 
conscience  and  what  it  stands  for.  We  are  substituting 
the  social  conscience  for  moral  sensitiveness  to  individual 
faults. 

Our  dominant  ethical  world  is  social.  It  voices  our 
profoundest  and  most  characteristic  aspirations,  but  our 
concern  about  social  righteousness,  sincere  as  it  is,  is 
bafflingly  impersonal.  We  build  and  furnish  our  houses 
of  vision,  unwitting  what  fashion  of  folk  we  shall  be 
when  we  have  passed  at  last  through  their  shining  doors. 
We   picture   fair  worlds  with   compelling  vividness:    we 

97 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

are  strangely  vague  as  to  our  proper  station  therein. 
We  have  a  clearer  vision  than  our  fathers  of  the  moral 
meanings  of  our  common  life  and  the  need  of  a  common 
effort  for  its  redemption,  but  we  are  in  sore  danger  of 
forgetting,  in  our  passion  for  a  better  world,  the  high 
imperatives  of  personal  goodness. 

Moreover,  conscience  and  all  that  conscience  implies 
is  being  supplanted  by  a  denial  of  personal  responsi- 
bility for  many  forms  of  wrong-doing.  We  are  now 
being  told  that  if  only  men  be  fittingly  clothed  and  fed 
they  will  straightway  be  honest,  and  that  fallen  woman- 
hood needs  only  a  living  wage  for  its  redemption. 

What  place  has  conscience  in  a  world  whose  deep- 
rooted  sins  will  begin  to  wither  and  die  directly  we 
begin  to  raise  wages,  and  whose  redemption  is  a  matter, 
not  of  moral  and  spiritual  travail,  but  of  the  single 
tax,  economic  legislation,  or  whatever  other  scheme  will 
change  our  social  environment  and  usher  in  a  new  day? 

To  crown  it  all,  we  do  not  nowadays  take  kindly 
to  ought  and  must.  Goodness  should,  we  are  persuaded, 
be  an  instinct  of  the  soul  undarkened  by  any  austere 
shadow  of  compulsion;  life  should  be  the  free  play  of 
personality,  unhampered  by  moral  conventions.  These 
and  like  considerations,  explain  our  diminishing  use  of 
conscience.  What  shall  we  say  of  it  all?  This,  most 
emphatically:  we  are  not  done  with  conscience,  but  need 
rather  a  new  vision  of  its  unchanging  power,  its  mighty 
meaning.  There  was  never  such  need  of  its  re-enthronement. 

The  most  complex  and  far-reaching  social  problems 
return  at  last  to  the  individual  soul.  Listen  to  what 
the  President  of  the  United  States  has  been  saying  just 
as  these  words  are  written:  "  Every  act  of  business," 
he  says,  "  is  done  at  the  command  or  upon  the  initiative 
of  some  ascertainable  person  or  group  of  persons.    These 

98 


A  GOOD   CONSCIENCE 

should  be  held  individually  responsible.  It  should  be 
one  of  the  main  objects  of  our  legislation  to  divest  such 
persons  of  their  corporate  cloak  and  deal  with  them  as 
with  those  who  do  not  represent  their  corporations,  but 
merely  by  deliberate  intention  break  the  law."  These 
are  wise  and  far-reaching  words.  Men  are  real;  the 
corporation  is  a  fiction.  We  have  been  shielding  our- 
selves behind  corporate  cloaks,  spending  ourselves  in 
corporate  arraignments,  and  losing  ourselves  in  dreams 
of  corporate  redemption,  while  all  about  us  is  a  world  of 
sinning,  aspiring,  struggling  men  and  women  who  are 
neither  dreams  nor  fictions,  but  the  makers  and  un- 
makers  of  a  holy  world.  And  the  sooner  we  are  brought 
back  to  this  homely  and  unescapable  truth,  the  sooner 
we  shall  begin  to  set  our  feet  upon  the  King's  High- 
road. The  voice  of  conscience  calls  us  back  to  a  sense 
of  our  individual  responsibility  and  commits  us  to  that 
lonely  commerce  between  ourselves  and  goodness  with- 
out which  all  else  is  vain. 

As  ancient  authorities  crumble,  and  the  time-worn 
judgment  seats  to  which  men  have  long  come  up  for 
guidance  and  direction  begin  to  be  deserted,  as  de- 
mocracy in  Church  and  State  spreads  its  ferment  abroad 
through  the  world,  and  men  follow  the  gleam  of  freedom, 
sometimes  down  roads  which  lead  to  ruin  and  anarchy, 
sometimes  across  the  very  hills  of  God,  so  much  the 
greater  need  that  there  should  be  established  in  every 
soul  a  throne  of  obedient  intimacy  between  the  soul  and 
right,  from  which  righteousness  may  be  administered. 
Thus,  and  thus  only,  shall  we  secure  an  obedience  without 
which  we  should  all  suffer  shipwreck,  a  temper  of  dis- 
ciplined goodness  without  which  liberty  is  the  mother  of 
ruin  and  disappointment. 

We    cannot    dismiss    personal    responsibility    without 

99 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF   LIFE 

unspeakable  loss.  Once  we  have  persuaded  men  and 
women  that  a  bare  back  and  an  empty  stomach  excuse 
the  gravest  faults,  we  have  made  them  brother  to  the 
beast.  The  life  is  more  than  meat  and  the  body  than 
raiment,  and  though  the  moral  struggle  of  a  great  multi- 
tude is  made  pathetically  hard  by  the  conditions  under 
which  they  are  compelled  to  fight,  and  though  a  just 
God  in  His  divine  adjudications  will  take  into  account 
the  odds  under  which  His  children  have  contended,  and 
though  we  are  all  under  the  compulsion  of  conscience 
itself  to  fight  as  for  life  for  a  better,  juster  world,  still 
the  need  of  conscience  is  so  much  the  greater  as  the 
strife  grows  desperate.  Here  is  a  holy  light  which  has 
led  God's  good  soldiers  through  many  shadows,  a 
heavenly  re-enforcement  which  has  again  and  again 
saved  the  day,  an  august  voice  which  has  called  the 
wandering  from  the  pit's  edge  and  turned  them  again 
to  the  Father's  house.  No,  we  cannot  dismiss  conscience 
yet.  Those  times  in  which  we  seem  to  have  least  need 
of  this  eldest  daughter  of  the  voice  of  God  are  the  times 
in  which  she  is  most  necessary  to  the  well-being  of  men, 
St.  Paul  is  God's  own  teacher  when  he  tells  us  that  the 
end  of  all  instruction  is  love  out  of  a  pure  heart  and 
a  good  conscience  and  faith  unfeigned.  A  good  con- 
science is  the  keystone  of  life's  arch. 

Where  does  it  come  from?  It  came  from  God,  and  yet 
in  all  likelihood  it  came  from  Him,  as  so  many  other 
and  most  intimate  and  precious  possessions  of  our  per- 
sonality have  come  from  the  same  creative  hand,  through 
eonian  descent.  It  is  so  much  a  part  of  ourselves  that 
we  would  have  to  unravel  the  very  web  and  woof  of 
personality  to  come  to  the  secret  of  it,  and  yet  it  has 
been  woven  into  our  substance  by  the  shuttle  of  time 
and  upon  the  loom  of  experience. 

100 


A  GOOD   CONSCIENCE 

They  tell  us  now  that  our  sense  of  right  and  wrong  is 
the  cumulative  and  funded  experience  of  the  human 
race,  and  that  conscience  is  not  the  voice  of  God  but 
the  testimony  of  experience.  Suppose  it  is.  Is  not 
experience  also  the  voice  of  God?  If  experience  has 
created  in  the  soul  itself  thrones  and  tribunals  and  voices 
of  authority  so  beyond  challenge  in  sanctity  and  au- 
thority that  we  accept  them  as  the  voice  of  God,  does 
it  not  bear  a  great  testimony  to  the  moral  quality  of 
the  universe  of  which  we  are  a  part?  Morality  dwells 
where  we  did  not  dream  she  had  her  habitations.  She 
makes  the  winds  her  chariots,  and  her  ministers  a  flaming 
fire.  Whither  shall  we  flee  from  her  presence?  If  we 
ascend  into  heaven,  she  is  there.  If  we  make  our  bed 
in  sheol,  she  is  there.  If  we  take  the  wings  of  the  morn- 
ing and  dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  sea,  even 
there  does  her  hand  lead  us,  her  right  hand  hold  us. 
She  is  a  light  to  guide  and  a  rod  to  check.    She  does  — 

"  Preserve  the  stars  from  wrong. 
And  the  most  ancient  heavens  through  her  are  fresh  and  strong." 

And  conscience  —  conscience  is  the  voice  and  witness  of 
it  all.  It  is  a  lamp  unto  our  feet  and  light  unto  our 
path,  a  voice  always  to  be  heard,  an  ever-present  judg- 
ment bar,  a  constant  re-enforcement  of  every  righteous 
cause,  a  barrier  to  be  passed  before  we  take  to  an  un- 
holy road,  an  immediate  and  axiomatic  response  to 
ethical  situations,  a  supreme  court  of  appeals,  the  last 
lonely  relationship  of  God  and  man.  Nay,  a  voice 
which  once  obeyed  is  final,  a  judge  in  the  knowledge  of 
whose  approval  we  may  fearlessly  face  God  Himself,  and 
for  whose  good  opinion  a  man  may  gladly  choose  to  die. 
Remember  that  the  apostle  insists  upon  the  need  of  a 
good  conscience.     The  very  force  and  authority  of  con- 

101 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE    OF  LIFE 

science  make  it  unspeakably  potent  either  for  good  or 
evil.  The  nobler  manifestations  of  conscience  dignify 
our  history,  glorify  our  race.  For  the  sake  of  conscience 
the  weak  and  simple  have  had  "  trial  of  mockings  and 
scourgings,  yea  moreover  of  bonds  and  imprisonment," 
the  catacombs  of  the  eternal  city  are  transfigured  in  that 
light  and  "  alpine  summits  cold  "  do,  because  men  died 
there  for  conscience's  sake,  kindle  to  the  Dayspring  from 
beyond  the  hills  of  time.  Rivers,  as  they  flow,  chant  the 
triumphant  memories  of  those  who  sang  the  praises  of 
God  with  lips  at  which  the  cruel  water  lapped,  and  the 
very  voices  of  the  sea  testify  to  the  dauntless  quality 
of  those  who  for  conscience's  sake  committed  themselves 
to  the  great  deep.  The  feet  of  men  have  worn  paths  to 
the  shrines  of  conscience  and  in  the  telling  of  the  story 
of  conscience  the  pages  of  history  shine  with  a  new 
glory. 

But  conscience  gone  wrong  is  pregnant  with  disastrous 
possibilities.  Ill-guided  conscience  has  lighted  many  a 
martyr  pile,  broken  many  a  saint  of  God  upon  the 
wheel,  sacked  many  a  city,  ruined  many  a  home,  sent 
abroad  brave  and  devoted  men  and  women  to  wander 
in  strange  lands  or  to  die  beneath  lonely  skies.  Ill- 
guided  conscience  has  driven  men  to  bitter  and  fruitless 
austerities,  emptied  their  lives  of  joy  and  fruitfulness  or 
whispered  into  the  ears  of  the  dying  the  indictment  of 
the  unforgivable  sin.  When  we  have  said  "  Here  I 
stand.  God  help  me.  I  can  do  no  other,"  Heaven  and 
earth  are  bound  to  attend,  for  we  have  spoken  out  of 
an  ultimate  necessity,  and  if  there  be  justice  anywhere 
we  shall  never  be  condemned  for  having  so  spoken. 
None  the  less,  we  do  not  thereby  escape  moral  responsi- 
bility. We  are  still  to  be  judged  for  the  pains  we  have 
taken  to  make  such  a  protestation   the  expression  of  a 

102 


A  GOOD   CONSCIENCE 

clear  insight  and  a  richly  disciplined  moral  nature.  We 
are  under  bonds  to  follow  the  light,  but  we  are  even 
more  deeply  under  bonds  to  see  that  the  light  which 
is  within  us  is  not  darkness.  What  makes  a  good  con- 
science, then? 

I.  Its  supremacy,  to  begin  with.  Conscience  may 
indeed  alter  the  fashion  of  its  rule;  it  must  never 
abdicate  and  it  cannot  share  its  seat  with  another. 
Conscience  is  supreme,  or  nothing.  Every  lesser  ques- 
tion—  "Will  this  pay?"  "Will  it  make  me  happy?" 
"  Is  it  expedient?  "  "Will  it  get  me  honor?  "  "  Will  it 
secure  me  contentment?  "  "  Is  it  the  easier  way?  "  — 
must,  if  conscience  is  to  keep  an  undiminished  authority, 
give  place  to  the  one  question  which  conscience  alone 
consents  to  ask:  "  Is  this  right?  "  A  good  conscience 
always  dominates  life  as  mountains  brood  above  the 
valleys  where  men  live  and  labor. 

Those  who  have  had  the  mountains  as  the  keepers  of 
their  horizons,  for  whom  the  gates  of  the  morning  have 
opened  through  the  passes  of  the  hills,  and  the  thresholds 
of  the  sunset  been  laid  level  with  mountain  summits, 
will  understand  their  ministry.  Not  that  we  needed 
always  to  be  looking  up  to  them,  then  we  should  never 
have  done  anything  else,  but  they  were  always  there, 
serene,  patient,  strong,  untroubled,  kindling  to  the  morn- 
ing, radiant  in  midday  amplitudes,  the  very  altars  of 
God,  feeding  constantly,  whether  we  looked  or  no,  their 
gravity  and  their  strength  into  our  souls.  Conscience 
should  be  like  that:  the  highest  thing  against  our  sky-line, 
an  over-brooding  presence,  assuring,  directing,  correcting, 
and  always  the  one  unchangeable  reality  by  which  we 
test  our  courses  and  orient  ourselves  anew. 

II.  A  good  conscience  is  not  only  supreme,  it  is 
sensitive.     There  is  an  openness  to  delicate  moral  distinc- 

103 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

tions,  a  fine  directness  of  response  to  quiet,  half-hidden, 
finely  shaded  moral  imperatives  which,  like  light  and 
shadow  across  a  landscape  or  the  subtle  transparencies 
of  the  atmosphere  itself,  are  the  very  conditions  of  moral 
perfection.  It  is  not  easy  to  say  what  one  means  here, 
but  we  all  feel  it.  It  is  like  the  overtone  of  a  noble 
voice.  The  difference  between  the  voice  which  moves  us 
with  haunting  suggestions  of  the  mystic  tears  of  things 
and  the  voice  which  leaves  us  cold  is  not  in  pitch  or  tone 
or  compass,  but  in  something  deeper,  which  is  itself  the 
revelation  of  the  singing  soul.  Something  like  this  gives 
determining  quality  to  goodness  which  is  so  warm, 
courageous,  beautiful  that  all  the  austere  heart  of  it  is 
lost  in  light  and  perfume,  as  the  purple  heather  hides 
the  granite  rock  of  Scottish  hills.  It  is  a  sensitive 
conscience  which  makes  the  difference,  a  quality  kept 
intact  only  in  an  instant  and  unfailing  obedience,  not 
alone  to  massive  moral  imperatives,  but  to  little  homely 
goodnesses  and  quiet  hidden  duties  and  lost  through  any 
coarsening  of  the  fibre,  any  hardening  of  the  moral  sense. 
Selfishness,  bitterness,  disobedience,  the  love  of  stained 
and  unholy  things,  passing  across  all  the  mystic  surfaces 
of  the  soul,  dull  and  darken  them. 

III.  A  good  conscience  is  always  guided  by  trained 
and  penetrating  moral  judgments.  There  is  indeed  an 
immediate  and  intuitive  quality  in  conscience  which 
seems  to  free  it  from  the  necessity  of  long  deliberations 
or  balanced  judgment.  Many  of  its  operations  are  auto- 
matic. It  outruns  judgment  and  returns  its  decisions 
without  deliberation.  It  is  this  quality  more  than  any 
other  which  gives  to  conscience  its  most  inexplicably 
authoritative  and  awesome  characteristics.  It  is  free 
from  our  doubts  and  hesitations  and  speaks  as  God 
might  speak.     But  moral  habits  and  instincts  so  direct, 

104 


A  GOOD   CONSCIENCE 

so  intuitive,  are  always  rooted  in  moral  travail.  Every 
moral  convention  was  once  a  conviction.  The  men  and 
women  who  had  first  to  face  this  or  that  moral  problem 
solved  them  only  by  the  labor  of  their  souls.  We  also 
in  the  brave  conduct  of  life  are  always  reaching  points 
where  inherited  judgments  will  not  do. 

"  God  fulfills  Himself  in  many  ways, 
Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world." 

is  the  poet's  way  of  saying  that  however  wise  and  good 
the  judgments  of  the  past  have  been,  we  are  always 
under  bonds  to  face  the  unfolding  situations  of  life  for 
ourselves. 

Now  the  guiding  agent  in  all  this  is  moral  judgment; 
the  estimation  of  situations,  that  is,  in  moral  terms.  No 
easy  task  this.  There  is  nothing  in  which  the  whole  of 
a  man  is  so  searchingly  made  manifest  as  in  his  moral 
judgments.  Such  judgments  reveal  our  whole  temper; 
they  spring  out  of  all  our  training,  grave  consequences 
wait  upon  them.  In  such  judgments  as  these  we  make 
our  truest  contribution  to  the  deepest  necessities  of  our 
own  time.  We  order  the  rise  and  fall  of  institutions; 
we  further  the  triumph  or  defeat  of  great  principles; 
we  determine  the  well-being  or  the  misery  of  men.  Such 
judgments  possess  a  kind  of  deathless  quality.  They 
will  walk  abroad  in  a  thousand  forms  to  help  or  hamper 
the  warriors  of  righteousness,  when  we  ourselves  have 
been  dismissed  from  the  field.  As  we  solve  our  own 
moral  problems  we  are  the  makers  of  the  conscience  of 
the  unborn;  co-workers  in  the  creation  of  the  moral 
sense  of  man. 

This  heavenly  wisdom  in  the  conduct  of  life  is  deeper 
than  casuistry;  it  is  higher  than  mere  knowledge.  This 
is  that  wisdom  the  gaining  of  which  is  better  than  the 

105 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

gaining  of  silver  and  the  profit  thereof  than  fine  gold, 
whose  paths  are  peace  and  which  is  a  tree  of  life  to 
them  that  lay  hold  upon  her.  This  is  that  understand- 
ing which  has  might,  by  which  kings  reign  and  princes 
decree  justice.  We  may  well  question  whether  we  give 
the  place  and  weight  to  trained  moral  judgment  which 
it  deserves.  We  think  in  terms  of  efficiency  —  that  is 
one  of  our  ruling  words  —  of  pleasure,  of  pain,  of  gain, 
of  the  practical  outcome  of  our  schemes  and  ambitions, 
but  do  we  anticipate  as  we  ought  the  moral  consequences 
of  our  programmes?  Are  we  distinctive  in  our  power  to 
estimate  situations  and  proposals  in  terms  of  righteous- 
ness, forecast  their  moral  outcome  and  relate  them  su- 
premely to  right  and  wrong?  We  are  in  more  than  one 
region  far  from  the  true  highroads  of  life  because  we 
have  sought  to  decide,  upon  low  and  unmoral  levels, 
questions  which  can  know  no  true  decision  until  they 
have  been  met  and  bravely  answered  upon  the  austere 
uplands  of  righteousness  itself. 

IV.  This  sets  us  face  to  face  directly  with  still 
another  characteristic  of  a  good  conscience.  A  good 
conscience  is  lighted  by  love.  "  Love  is  always  the 
surer  judgment";  loveless  moral  judgments  are  always 
wanting  in  that  last  divine  validity  which  makes  them 
in  very  truth  the  daughters  of  the  voice  of  God.  A 
loveless  conscience  neither  forgets  self  nor  takes  into 
account  the  need  or  the  weakness  of  others.  It  is  not 
so  much  ill-guided  as  unloving  consciences  which  are  so 
fruitful  in  moral  contradictions  and  unhappinesses. 
Love  alters  all  our  outlook  upon  life,  heightens  our  in- 
sights and  intuitions,  searches  out,  by  a  kind  of  heavenly 
grace,  and  understands  the  troubled  weaknesses  of  men, 
throws  about  their  derelictions  the  mantle  of  a  divine 
charity,  does  not  refuse  to  walk  with  them  the  ways  of 

106 


A  GOOD   CONSCIENCE 

redemptive  expiation.  Love  is  swift  to  serve,  slow  to 
condemn,  quick  to  battle  for  others,  patient  to  bear  with 
them.  It  is  a  strange  testimony  to  our  weakness,  and 
indeed  to  our  waywardness,  that  we  have  been  so  little 
able  to  join  together  conscience  and  love  in  life.  Love 
so  often  becomes  spineless  and  tragically  indulgent; 
conscience  too  often  becomes  bitter  and  unsympathetic. 
So  the  two  walk  far  apart  and  we  all  suffer  together 
because  of  their  alienation.  Conscience  brings  to  love 
qualities  without  which  love  is  no  true  love;  love  brings 
to  conscience  qualities  without  which  conscience  may 
become  the  most  cruel  master  and  the  most  ill-advised 
guide  in  the  world.  When  these  two  walk  together  as 
they  ought,  all  the  fruits  of  holiness  and  the  flowers  of 
beauty  begin  to  blossom  along  the  way  and  a  great 
singing  follows  them:  the  voice  of  the  well-being  of  man. 
V.  A  good  conscience  is  always  on  guard.  It  chal- 
lenges every  motive,  asserts  its  right  over  every  deed. 
It  does  not  come  or  go  at  the  bidding  of  self-interest, 
it  is  not  drugged  by  pleasure  or  put  to  sleep  by  any 
siren's  song.  It  is  easy  to  put  out  the  fire  of  moral 
insurrection  when  the  first  spark  fails;  it  is  not  so  easy 
when  every  power  and  passion  is  ablaze.  Conscience 
at  the  stile  of  By-path  Meadow  will  save  us  from  much 
lying  in  the  "stinking  dungeon"  of  Doubting  Castle  and 
from  such  a  fight  with  Giant  Despair  as  often  puts  the 
issue  in  doubt.  So  King  John,  reaping  at  last  the  full 
harvest  of  all  his  evil  sowing  and  looking  from  the 
ground  where  the  blood  of  the  slain,  finding  tongue,  cried 
out  in  red  reproach,  to  a  sky  dark  with  the  shadow  of 
imminent  doom,  turned  upon  the  man  who  had  been 
his  tool: 

*•'  Hadst  thou  but  shook  thy  head,  or  made  a  pause, 
When  I  spake  darkly  what  I  purposed; 

107 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

Or  turn'd  an  eye  of  doubt  upon  my  face, 
As  bid  me  tell  my  tab  in  express  words; 
Deep  shame  had  struck  me  dumb,  made  me  break  off, 
And  those  thy  fears  might  have  wrought  fears  in  me: 
****** 

Out  of  my  sight,  and  never  see  me  morel  " 

It  is  an  evil  day  when,  in  some  situation  from  which 
retreat  is  difficult  and  the  shadows  deepen,  we  must  so 
turn  upon  an  unfaithful  conscience,  which  might  in  the 
beginning  so  easily  have  saved  us,  finding  "  hostility  and 
evil  tumult "  in  our  very  soul  because  the  warden  of  the 
gate  failed  in  his  watchful  task. 

VI.  A  good  conscience  is  always  extending  its  empire. 
A  world  which  is  being  remade  as  rapidly  as  ours,  whose 
relationships  are  being  almost  unbelievably  extended, 
demands  an  equal  extension  of  moral  insight  and  au- 
thority. Standards  of  right  and  wrong  which  yesterday 
seemed  wholly  adequate  are  today  almost  tragically 
disparate.  Time  was  when  the  field  of  conscience  was 
coterminous  with  close  and  clearly  seen  relationships  of 
life,  social  duties  were  few  and  simple  enough.  A  man 
dealt  with  his  neighbors,  and  if  so  be  he  dealt  with 
them  simply  and  honestly  he  had  done  his  part.  The 
consequences  of  his  actions  begun  and  ended  with  his 
village  or  his  countryside. 

Today  all  that  is  changed.  The  consequences  of  our 
actions  girdle  the  globe.  The  cheap  purchase  at  a  bargain 
counter  may  mean  a  sweat-shop,  hard-driven  employees, 
long  hours,  overworked  children,  desperate  men,  tempted 
and  distraught  women.  A  business  transaction  may 
involve  directly  a  city  full  of  people,  indirectly  it  may 
aflfect  the  policies  of  a  nation.  We  see  behind  the  ordi- 
nary employments  of  life  their  far-reaching  consequences; 
the  barriers  between  east  and  west  are  broken  down  and 
our  whole  great  weltering  world,  wherein    we    are    tied 

108 


A  GOOD   CONSCIENCE 

up  altogether  in  one  bundle,  by  filaments  which  are  being 
spun  and  woven  through  all  our  days  and  all  our  deeds, 
confronts  and  challenges  us. 

How  shall  we  extend  the  empire  of  conscience  in  such 
a  world  as  ours?  How  shall  we  stretch  abroad  its  scepter 
over  forces  so  vast  and  turbulent?  It  is  our  master- 
moral  task,  and  it  must  be  done.  Conscience  may  not  be 
halted  at  our  dooryard;  it  must  rule  in  vaster  fields  than 
these.  Here  is  the  deeper  significance  of  all  the  travail 
of  our  own  time  in  which  we  are  tossed  as  an  ocean  liner 
in  a  mid-Atlantic  storm.  Through  the  welter  of  legisla- 
tion, the  ferment  too  often  half  hysterical  of  the  progress 
of  new  ideas,  the  crying  aloud  of  the  heralds  of  strange 
new  kingdoms,  conscience  is  in  action.  We  are  seeking 
to  make  righteousness  regnant  in  territories  which 
righteousness  has  heretofore  but  brokenly  occupied,  and 
to  subdue  to  goodness  unordered  and  rebellious  provinces. 
The  fight  is  on,  the  noise  of  it  is  in  our  ears,  the 
wounded  are  constantly  being  brought  from  the  front, 
the  defeated  and  the  discouraged  are  coming  down  from 
high  places,  those  victorious  in  the  strife  are  half  lost  in 
the  smoke  of  battle.  God  give  us  power  enough  to  carry 
it  through. 

VII.  A  good  conscience  is  always  being  renewed,  aye 
rebaptized  in  the  power  which  first  gave  it  birth.  A 
true  moral  life  is  not,  as  we  have  too  often  taught,  a 
crystal  vase  which  for  one  flaw  is  to  be  cast  aside  for- 
ever, but  a  living,  struggling,  growing  thing,  a  tree  as 
it  were  deep  rooted  in  the  past,  some  of  whose  branches 
have  been  smitten  by  the  lightning  of  passion,  or 
broken  in  some  tempest  shock,  or  weakened  by  subtle 
growths,  or  dwarfed  in  the  forest  shade,  but  whose 
vaster  spread  is  nevertheless  flung  abroad  to  the  light  of 
God,  lifted  toward  the  sky,  renewing  its  own  life,  out- 

109 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

growing  its  wounds,  concealing  its  scars  by  the  very 
processes  of  life  itself,  and  reborn  with  each  new  spring 
of  the  soul.  What  is  all  this  but  God  coming  anew  into 
life  and  what  is  the  Cross  but  the  deathless  assurance 
that  He  is  always  at  our  call? 

I  have  seen  consciences  so  scarred  by  the  fires  of  evil 
indulgence  as  to  be  seemingly  dead,  remade  by  the  grace 
of  God  until  they  became  tender  as  the  conscience  of  a 
little  child;  wills  so  enervated  that  they  waited  supine 
in  the  anarchical  ruin  of  all  that  they  were  meant  to 
rule,  reinstated  upon  their  thrones  of  divine  administra- 
tion; capacities  of  moral  vision  strangely  dulled  opened 
anew  to  the  rising  of  the  light  of  God,  and  all  this 
because  men  and  women  in  their  extremity,  given  courage 
by  the  vision  of  the  Cross  and  guided  by  the  touch  of 
the  pierced  hand,  cast  themselves  anew  upon  the  love 
and  power  of  God,  and  were  there  reborn. 

In  one  thing  the  best  and  bravest  of  us,  the  weakest 
and  most  craven  of  us,  are  alike:  we  shall  never  have 
strength  enough  to  fight  the  battle  through  to  the  end, 
nor  become  fit  instruments  of  the  righteous  process  of 
the  Most  High  unless  we  come  back  again  and  again 
to  God  for  moral  restorations  which  will  never  be  denied 
us;  —  nay,  unless  we  walk  so  constantly  in  His  presence 
that  all  our  goodness,  whether  secret  or  manifest,  is  but 
the  constant  outflowing  of  His  saving  presence.  It  is 
by  the  help  of  God  and  in  the  discipleship  of  Jesus 
Christ  that  a  good  conscience  is  securely  established  and 
changelessly  kept.  So  established  and  guided,  it  becomes 
indeed  a  holy  power  both  to  control  and  impel,  an  ad- 
ministrator whose  edicts  are  registered  in  a  braver,  nobler 
world,  whose  high  decrees  so  operate  that  God's  will  is 
done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven. 


110 


IX 
THE   POOL  AND   THE   CONDUIT 

"  Now  the  rest  of  the  acts  of  Hezekiah  and  all  his  might,  and  how  he  made 
a  pool  and  a  conduit  and  brought  water  into  the  city,  are  they  not  written  in 
the  book  of  the  chronicles  of  the  Kings  of  Judah?  "  ■ —  2  Kings  20  :  20. 

In  the  long  story  of  the  Judean  kings,  so  full  of  human 
interest  and  so  strangely  interwoven  with  light  and 
shadow,  King  Hezekiah  is  well  remembered.  He  bore 
himself  as  a  good  king  ought,  keeping  his  own  life  clean 
and  unstained,  caring  for  his  people  and  making  a  brave 
show  against  his  enemies.  The  tides  of  war  broke  more 
than  once  against  the  very  walls  of  his  capital  city,  but 
he  saved  his  throne  and  his  kingdom.  He  cleansed  his 
temple  from  the  defilement  of  ancient  superstitions  and 
made  it  worthy  of  the  worship  of  the  Lord.  He  beauti- 
fied his  city  as  he  could  and  in  the  end,  having  endured 
much,  he  "  slept  with  his  fathers,"  remembered  by  the 
ancient  chroniclers  of  his  people  for  that  "  he  made  a 
pool  and  a  conduit  and  brought  water  into  the  city." 
The  last  light  of  his  setting  sun  falls  not  upon  his  battle- 
fields nor  imperial  pomp  but  upon  the  pool  which  he  had 
made  for  the  comfort  of  a  thirsty  people,  and  the  sound 
of  falling  waters  is  his  requiem. 

Nothing  is  so  long  remembered  in  this  world  as  the 
service  which  addresses  itself  to  elemental  human  needs: 

"  The  tumult  and  the  shouting  dies, 
The  captains  and  the  kings  depart," 

but  what  men  have  done  to  make  other  men  happy  and 
blessed  is  never  forgotten.     Kings  in  the  end  are  remem- 

111 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

bered  not  for  their  greatness  but  for  their  humanity. 
The  famous  or  the  infamous  deeds  of  the  kings  of  France 
gather  the  dust  of  obHvion;  but  France  has  never  for- 
gotten the  king  who  wanted  every  peasant  to  have  a 
chicken  in  the  pot  on  Saturday  night,  and  when  in  the 
red  fury  of  the  French  Revolution  those  to  whom  noth- 
ing was  sacred  broke  into  the  resting  places  of  the 
mighty  French  dead  and  violated  their  sepulchers  of 
kings  and  potentates,  they  paid  court  to  the  very  dust 
of  Henry  of  Navarre  because  he  loved  his  people  and 
would  have  fed  them  when  they  were  hungry. 

The  chronicle  of  King  Hezekiah  then  may  well  recall 
to  us  through  the  symbolism  of  the  pool  and  the  con- 
duit two  simple  and  unforgettable  truths:  First,  the 
power  of  personality,  and  second,  the  great  human  ends 
to  which  all  brave  and  worthy  life  should  address  itself. 
We  are  today  very  greatly  in  danger  of  underestimating 
the  worth,  the  meaning  and  the  responsibility  of  in- 
dividuality in  our  endeavor  for  a  better  world.  Corpo- 
rate ideals,  corporate  action  and  corporate  responsi- 
bility are  in  the  way  of  supplanting  individual  ideals, 
individual  action  and  individual  responsibility,  and  the 
reason  is  not  far  to  seek.  Our  world  is  doubly  enlarged: 
once  through  the  very  multiplication  of  all  its  forces;  and 
once  through  the  wearing  away  of  whatever  frontiers 
lately  separated  us  from  our  neighbors. 

The  Western  World  at  the  beginning  of  the  20th 
century  has  more  than  twice  the  population  of  the 
Western  World  at  the  beginning  of  the  19th  century, 
and  the  individual  shrinks  apace.  "  Surely "  we  say, 
"a  man  might  have  counted  for  something  in  Jerusalem 
or  Athens  or  Florence;  but  he  is  lost  in  London  or 
Chicago  or  New  York."  Our  industrial  organization 
has   largely   ceased    to   be   the   fraternal   action   of   men 

112 


THE  POOL  AND   THE   CONDUIT 

working  together  in  small  groups,  where  each  man  knew 
his  neighbor  and  where  the  distinction  between  master 
and  workman  was  humanized  by  the  very  closeness  of 
their  relationship  and  their  long  personal  association, 
and  has  become  instead  a  vast  and  complicated  machine 
where  the  workmen  are  known  only  by  their  numbers 
and  where  those  in  control  can  have  but  little  human 
contact  with  those  who  serve  them. 

There  is,  of  course,  but  one  answer  to  such  a  situa- 
tion. The  workmen  organize  in  their  turn  for  collective 
action  and  collective  bargaining.  They  put  their  inter- 
ests in  the  hands  of  their  delegates,  and  all  negotiations 
thereafter  between  master  and  men  are  conducted  by 
representatives  of  massed  forces,  inevitably  led  to  depend 
all  too  much  upon  the  corporate  strength  of  which 
they  are  so  greatly  conscious,  too  little  upon  the  justice 
and  integrity  of  their  positions.  Our  industrial  bearings 
heat  quickly  because  they  are  stripped  of  those  softening 
human  relationships  born  of  sympathy  and  long  associa- 
tion; our  industrial  forces  lift  themselves  against  our 
sky  lines  as  Alpine  cliffs,  hard,  cruel  and  menacing.  We 
have  already  begun  to  supply  in  state  and  federal  control 
such  guiding  and  restraining  influences  as  are  absolutely 
necessary  if  society  is  not  to  be  crushed  between  the 
impact  of  organized  industry  and  organized  labor.  In 
such  ways  as  these  individual  responsibility  is  simply 
worn  away  and  supplanted  by  corporate  ideals  of  re- 
sponsibility and  conduct  in  the  face  of  which  employer 
and  employed  alike  feel  themselves  so  helpless  as  to 
forget  how  socially  creative  individual  life  may  really 
become. 

I  have  dwelt  at  length  upon  our  industrial  situation 
as  an  outstanding  illustration  of  the  changing  aspects 
of  our  life,  because  what  is  true  of  business  is  true  of 

113 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

religion,  charity,  education,  statescraft,  diplomacy, 
war,  and  every  field  of  human  activity.  Beyond  all  this, 
whatever  secured  for  us  in  a  simpler  world  some  little 
space  between  ourselves  and  our  neighbors  is  beginning 
to  disappear.  Our  world  is  a  melting-pot  and  the  future 
will  but  accentuate  what  is  already  begun.  No  wonder 
then  that  we  look  out  upon  it  with  a  feeling  of  individual 
helplessness  which  is  alv/ays  numbing,  if  we  will  let  it, 
our  courage  and  our  initiative.  "  What  can  I  do  my- 
self," we  say,  "  in  the  face  of  conditions  so  vast  and 
complex  as  those  which  surround  us?  My  voice  is 
silenced  by  the  hoarse  music  of  city  streets;  the  cities 
themselves  are  only  atoms  in  the  vast  human  fabric. 
No  need  for  me  to  try  to  build  a  pool  and  a  conduit,  and 
to  bring  some  little  water  of  happiness  or  blessedness 
into  the  world,  or  to  follow  my  lonely  ideals,  or  to  com- 
mit myself  to  any  lonely  struggle  for  a  happier  order." 
Our  very  ethics  have  become  group  ethics.  We  act  and 
react  as  classes  and  pass  on  the  responsibility  for  our 
fault  and  failure  to  the  larger  order  of  which  we  are  a 
part.  The  prophets  of  economic  determinism  are  re- 
writing history  in  terms  of  the  play  and  interplay  of 
economic  forces,  and  morality  in  terms  of  hunger  and 
thirst,  clothing  and  shelter;  honesty  and  chastity  and 
character  itself  so  become  the  by-product  of  a  living 
wage.  Virtue  is  a  mere  matter  of  economic  position  and 
goodness  is  only  the  register  of  the  balance  of  our  daily 
account. 

There  Is  no  denying  or  escaping  the  elemental  truth 
in  all  this,  and  I,  for  my  part,  am  persuaded  that  the 
Christian  Church  would  do  well  to  recognize  it.  We 
have  come  almost  to  the  end  on  the  road  down  which 
we  may  expect  a  purely  individualistic  gospel  to  carry 
men.     Behind  the  instinctive  reaction  from  the  religion 

114 


THE  POOL  AND  THE  CONDUIT 

of  Jesus  Christ  of  multitudes  whom  the  Church  tries 
vainly  to  reach,  there  is  the  feeling,  to  be  reckoned  with, 
that  the  necessities  of  our  corporate  life  so  defeat  the 
lonely  idealisms  which  the  Church  exalts  as  not  to 
make  it  worth  while  for  a  man  to  listen  on  Sunday  to 
the  preaching  of  a  gospel  which  Monday's  task  makes 
impossible.  "  It  is  better,"  men  and  women  are  saying, 
—  though  they  themselves  do  not  clearly  formulate  the 
ground  of  their  protest  —  "It  is  better  not  to  pledge  one's 
self  to  these  ideals  at  all  than  to  undertake  them  and 
fail  in  them  and  so  add  one  more  contradiction  to  life, 
which  at  the  best  is  contradictory  enough." 

I  do  believe  that  before  we  shall  have  fulfilled  the 
Christian  hope  or  realized  the  Christian  ideal  we  shall 
need  to  so  recast  the  forms  of  our  corporate  life  as  to 
make  them  the  tempered  instruments  of  the  Spirit  of 
Jesus  Christ  —  and  all  that  we  have  done  in  the  last  two 
thousand  years  is  but  the  beginning  of  the  battle  as 
compared  with  this.  As  long  as  our  world  is  organized 
on  a  competitive  instead  of  a  cooperative  basis,  so  long 
will  Christian  brotherhood  remain  an  iridescent  dream, 
and  we  shall  secure  for  our  comrades  in  the  fight  for  it 
only  those  who  are  brave  enough  to  volunteer  for  a 
forlorn  hope,  or  else  those  who  find  their  peace  in  a 
mystic  individualism,  or  else  those  who  are  not  spiritually 
sensitive  enough  to  be  conscious  of  the  crushing  discrep- 
ancy between  the  allegiances  which  they  profess  and  the 
world  in  which  we  live. 

None  the  less  there  are  some  things  which  we  must 
not  forget.  The  power  and  responsibility  of  the  indi- 
vidual is  central  and  unescapable.  It  is  still  the  business 
of  every  one  of  us  to  clear  about  himself  some  little 
space  in  which  a  loving  and  unselfish  life  may  express 
itself;    so  at  least  we  shall  pierce  our  darkness  with  the 

115 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

light  from  on  high.  If  we  are  to  re-make  our  world 
until  it  becomes  Christ's  world,  we  shall  do  that  only 
as  we  highly  exalt  our  individual  powers  and  throw  the 
whole  weight  of  a  devoted  personality  against  the  in- 
ertia of  conservatism  or  the  sharper  hostility  of  social 
selfishness.  If  in  the  end  our  dream  should  come  true 
and  our  children's  children  come  at  last  into  a  happier 
order,  whose  forms  and  forces,  possessed  and  transformed 
by  the  Spirit  of  Jesus,  have  become  his  hallowed  instru- 
ments, even  then  the  world  will  be  kept  and  saved  and 
blessed  only  as  each  citizen  of  that  far-sought  order 
builds  out  of  his  own  dedicated  personality  a  conduit  for 
truth  and  goodness  and  love.  We  must  not  let  either 
our  hopes  or  our  fears  mislead  us.  Hope  and  fear  alike 
are  to  be  met  by  the  resolute  affirmation  of  the  worth 
of  individuality  and  our  power  through  making  the  best 
of  ourselves,  to  transform  that  of  which  we  are  a  part 
and  maintain  it  upon  the  high  levels  of  spiritual  and 
moral  integrity. 

For  our  world,  great  or  small,  is  just  a  world  of  hu- 
man folk.  States  are  not  different  colored  areas  upon 
the  map;  states  are  human  fellowships  built  out  of  the 
living  and  the  loving  and  the  struggling,  possessing,  in 
common,  lands  and  memories  and  disciplines  and  hopes. 
Never  a  city  so  great  but  what  its  people  are  just  men 
and  women  going  out  in  the  morning  to  their  work  and 
coming  in  when  the  day  is  done  to  their  homes,  living 
together  in  families  and  yet,  in  an  unshared  and  un- 
shareable  isolation,  meeting  the  great  human  experiences 
as  they  always  have  been  and  always  must  be  met, 
whether  a  man  be  alone  or  whether  he  be  one  of  a 
multitude.  Duty  has  its  corporate  aspects  but  it  always 
addresses  the  individual  conscience.  Industry  has  its  far- 
flung  organizations,  but  it  is  men  and  women  who  create 

116 


THE  POOL  AND   THE  CONDUIT 

them  and  give  them  whatever  character  they  possess. 
Every  high-held  hope  demands  an  individual  answer. 
Though  our  ideals  lift  themselves  as  mountain  masses, 
they  cease  to  be  ideals  if  they  are  not  held  and  loved 
and  served  by  individuals.  We  are  not  so  helpless  as  we 
dream;  there  is  no  strength  even  of  mobilized  armies 
which  is  not  the  strength  of  soldiers  and  captains,  nor 
any  courage  which  is  not  a  personal  courage,  nor  any 
cowardice  which  is  not  individual.  There  is  a  mass 
psychology,  but  it  is  only  individual  states  of,  mind 
yielding  themselves  to  contagious  suggestion.  There  are 
corporate  achievements,  but  they  are  only  the  sum  of  the 
deeds  of  men  and  women  who  build  out  of  themselves 
that  which  is  vaster  than  themselves. 

Our  business,  therefore,  whatever  our  station  or  our 
force,  is  to  conceive  highly  our  own  place  and  power  and 
responsibility  and  to  build  out  of  all  that  we  are  or  do 
conduits  by  which  truth  and  love  and  goodness  incarnate 
in  us,  are  made  free  of  a  world  from  which  they  would 
otherwise  be  shut  out.  I  cannot  conceive  any  situation 
in  which  it  is  not,  after  all,  a  man's  central  and  continuing 
business  to  make  himself  the  channel  of  honesty,  clean 
living,  brave  service,  aye,  and  the  love  and  goodness  of 
God;  and  if  we  do  this,  one  by  one,  we  need  not  despair 
of  the  battle.  We  have  wisdom  enough,  if  we  will  use  it, 
not  to  be  cheated  by  phrases;  integrity  enough,  if  we 
will  assert  it,  not  to  be  lost  in  the  mass;  strength  enough, 
if  we  will  release  it,  not  to  be  crushed  by  the  sense  of 
our  own  powerlessness,  and  personality  enough,  if  we 
will  spend  it,  to  make  an  holy  contribution  to  a  better 
and  more  Christian  world. 

History  is  something  vaster  and  more  vital  than  the 
mere  interplay  of  economic  forces;  history  is  but  the 
record    of    what    struggling    humanity    has    been    able 

117 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

through  vision  and  power  to  compass.  History  is  noth- 
ing other  than  the  record  of  the  reaUzation  of  the  eternal 
values  through  unnumbered  lives  in  unnumbered  genera- 
tions, following  some  heavenly  vision  and  serving  equities 
and  justices.  The  Bibles  and  the  creeds  of  our  religion 
are  but  the  expression  of  those  who,  having  known  God 
in  their  own  souls,  have  testified  to  His  goodness  and 
have  sought  to  share  with  others  the  truth  of  which 
they  themselves  have  been  persuaded.  There  is  nowhere 
any  truth  or  goodness  which  has  not  come  into  the  world 
as  waters  come  into  a  city  through  their  conduits, 
through  the  instrumentality  of  a  rich  and  consecrated 
personality. 

If  we  are  minded  to  inquire  of  how  much  a  single  life 
kept  steadfastly  open  to  ideal  values  and  steadfastly 
dedicated  to  the  service  of  God  and  man  is  capable,  we 
have  but  to  call  the  roll  of  leaders  and  benefactors 
of  humanity.  Some  of  them  have  been  the  channels  of 
the  knowledge  of  God.  Some  of  them  have  been 
channels  of  liberty  and  justice.  Some  of  them  have 
built  their  conduits  between  our  wandering  gaze  and 
the  stars;  some  of  them  between  the  broken  records  of 
the  rocks  and  our  curiosity  as  to  the  long,  long  history 
of  the  earth  upon  which  we  dwell.  Some  men  have 
been  channels  of  music;  they  have  heard  harmonies  in 
the  silences  and  have  made  articulate  for  us  the  music 
to  which  they  listened.  Some  have  been  channels  of 
beauty;  the  walls  of  great  galleries  glow  with  the  pic- 
tured wonder  of  what  they  have  seen  as  they  looked 
with  the  eye  of  the  spirit  into  the  world  of  form  and 
color. 

Our  laws,  our  literature,  our  industry,  have  all  come 
to  us  through  channelled  lives  open  to  the  realities  and 
possibilities  of  a  better  world,  or  richer  thought,  or  more 

118 


THE  POOL  AND  THE   CONDUIT 

fruitful  action,  and  spending  themselves  in  obedience  to 
their  heavenly  vision.  And  such  as  these  are  the  high 
and  gratefully  remembered  comrades  of  the  unnoted  and 
forgotten,  who  have  none  the  less  in  their  own  place 
and  in  what  power  they  possessed,  brought  to  a  thirsty 
humanity  something  of  the  love  and  goodness  which  any 
faithful,  devoted  life  may  make  real.  The  love  which  is 
about  us  like  light,  the  steadfast  goodness  which  under- 
girds  our  stormy  world  and  keeps  it  safe  through  storm 
and  battle,  the  unnumbered  services,  whether  of  the 
living  or  the  dead,  in  which  we  are  rich  and  glad  and 
blessed,  are  but  lonely  fidelity  to  high  things  made  mani- 
fest and  enduring  in  simple  station,  monotonous  labor, 
and  unremembered  life. 

We  shall  do  well  to  become  their  comrades,  and  to 
that  end  we  ought  unrestingly  to  acquaint  ourselves  with 
whatever  better  or  happier  thing  may  possess  us  and 
live  in  and  through  us.  We  shall  never  be  able  to  build 
any  conduit  if  we  have  not  somewhere  access  through 
insight  and  obedience  to  the  ideal  values.  Plato,  the 
dreamer  of  all  dreamers,  has  told  us  that  there  is  some- 
where a  perfect  world  in  which  beauty  and  love  and 
goodness  have  their  enduring  habitation,  and  that  all 
things  of  sense  and  time  are  but  broken  reflections  of  an 
eternal  light,  temporal  reproductions  of  eternal  realities. 
I  know  not  where  that  land  of  perfectness  is,  or  how  its 
frontiers  run  out  to  meet  us,  or  on  what  seas  you  sail  to 
cross  it,  nor  did  Plato  know;  but  I  do  know  that  God 
has  given  to  each  one  of  us  some  little  power  through 
thought,  experience,  or  vision,  to  touch  the  world  of  the 
ideal.  Nay,  more  than  that,  in  Jesus  Christ  and  his 
spirit  and  his  revelation,  each  one  of  us  is,  and  may  be- 
come increasingly,  a  citizen  of  this  world  of  ideal  good- 
ness;   he  has  made  divinely  clear  to  us  the  light  we  are 

119 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

to  follow,  the  laws  we  are  to  obey  and  the  holy  order 
for  which  we  are  to  spend  ourselves.  Each  one  of  us 
has  some  sense  of  a  more  perfect  beauty  to  be  realized 
in  life  and  conduct  and  service;  each  one  of  us  is  con- 
scious of  an  amplitude  of  truth  still  to  be  possessed  and 
to  be  conformed  to.  There  is  a  justice  the  summons  of 
which  we  feel  and  which  will  never  serve  the  adminis- 
trations of  men  until  we  are  just;  there  are  a  thousand 
brave  and  generous  qualities  which  may  only  become 
real  as  they  become  real  in  our  lives.  Let  us  make  our- 
selves their  channels. 

We  shall  make  ourselves  their  channels  first  of  all 
in  our  deeds;  great  qualities  of  life  never  become  true  in 
a  vacuum.  All  high  and  holy  things  may  indeed  be 
thought  of  apart  from  their  exercise  and  conceived  in 
their  eternal  perfectness,  but  they  become  true  only  as 
we  live  them  out.  There  is  an  ideal  justice  which  com- 
mands and  moves  us,  but  justice  in  action  is  just  taking 
the  other  man's  point  of  view,  dealing  as  fairly  with  his 
interests  as  you  deal  with  your  own,  considering  his 
equities  and  deciding  for  him  as  you  decide  for  yourself. 
In  such  ways  as  this  men  are  building  conduits  for 
justice  in  every  act  of  their  social  and  industrial  life. 
The  challenge  of  justice  meets  us  at  the  threshold  of  our 
offices  and  factories,  stands  beside  us  at  our  desks. 
Some  problem  of  justice  confronts  us  at  every  turning. 
The  business  man  must  always  be  asking,  How  shall  I 
be  just  to  my  customers,  just  to  my  competitors,  just 
to  the  men  who  work  for  me  and  just  to  myself?  And 
as  in  each  case  he  studies  the  equities  and  makes  the 
most  just  decision  of  which  he  is  capable,  he  has  brought 
justice  into  human  fellowship  of  which  he  is  a  part 
and  built  a  conduit  between  his  factory  or  office  with 
that  eternal   reality. 

120 


THE  POOL  AND   THE  CONDUIT 

And  so  with  goodness.  We  are  never  good  until  we 
are  good  for  something;  in  our  pleasures,  our  fellow- 
ships, our  deeds,  our  dreams,  and  in  our  dealings  with 
our  own  souls,  we  are  always  being  offered  occasions  for 
goodness,  and  if  so  be  we  seek  out  and  obey  the  highest, 
listen  to  the  voice  of  conscience,  and  give  righteousness 
the  right  of  way,  then  our  lives  function  in  goodness  and 
we  are  become  a  living  channel  through  which  goodness 
comes  into  the  world. 

Nor  is  it  otherwise  with  love.  Love  becomes  real  only 
in  human  relationships  and  only  in  our  dealing  with 
others.  When  we  are  considerate  and  self-forgetful, 
when  we  seek  the  happiness  of  others,  gather  them  up 
in  our  sympathies,  shelter  them  with  our  gentleness,  ask 
only  the  best  for  them,  and  bear  ourselves  toward  them 
in  a  kind  of  tenderness  and  glowing  passion  for  their 
enduring  well-being,  then  we  have  built  a  conduit  for 
love,  and  in  the  power  of  it  life  begins  to  be  transformed. 
Truth  is  realized  among  us  in  the  same  fashion.  When 
our  words  have  become  the  clear  revelation  either  of  the 
integrities  of  our  own  soul  or  the  realities  of  the  world 
—  when  we  ask  only  to  discover  and  make  articulate  the 
ways  of  God  whether  we  discover  them  in  our  medita- 
tions or  the  investigations  of  our  laboratories  or  offices, 
when  in  the  face  of  any  fact,  whether  of  the  outer  or 
the  inner  world,  we  ask  only  the  grace  to  deal  honestly 
with  that  fact  and  report  it  as  it  is,  then  we  have  be- 
come the  conduits  of  truth. 

There  is  no  end  to  such  illustrations  as  these.  Pa- 
tience is  real  only  as  we  learn  how  to  wait  for  the  ful- 
filment of  our  joys  or  the  triumph  of  the  causes  for 
which  we  strive.  Courage  becomes  real  only  as  we  make 
it  manifest  upon  some  field  of  battle;  and  there  is  indeed 
nothing  true  or  ideal  to  be  sought,  or  loved,  or  lived  for, 

121 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

which  may  not  somehow  be  made  incarnate  in  our  deeds 
and  which  without  us  fails  of  being  real  at  all.  Seen  in 
such  a  light  as  this  our  occupations  take  on  new  meanings. 
They  are  neither  buying  nor  selling  nor  teaching  nor  healing 
nor  pleasure  nor  any  such  thing.  They  are  simply  channels 
through  which  eternal  and  ideal  qualities  draw  down  into  an 
existence  whose  only  justification  is  the  opportunity  which 
it  offers  for  their  exercise  and  which  is  made  perfect  only 
as  it  becomes  the  expression  of  their  radiant  reality. 

Beyond  all  this,  though  related  to  it,  of  course,  we 
build  conduits  for  all  better  things,  not  only  through  our 
deeds  but  in  our  personalities.  For  a  man's  personality, 
though  it  be  the  record  of  what  he  has  done,  is  some- 
thing more  than  that;  there  is  a  power  in  life  which  is 
not  included  in  any  catalog  of  our  activities  no  matter 
how  searching  or  exhaustive.  Personality  is  greater  than 
any  deed.  Its  profoundest  suggestion  cannot  be  made 
real  in  words.  Personality  itself  is  a  voice,  a  force  and 
an  influence.  The  richest  gift  which  my  friend  brings 
me  is  not  what  he  says,  however  graciously  he  speaks, 
or  what  he  does,  no  matter  how  considerate  or  unselfish 
his  deed;  the  richest  gift  my  friend  brings  me  is  himself. 
If  we  dwell  much  in  the  comradeship  of  the  high  and 
the  enduring  and  do  not  fail  in  any  fidelity  to  truth  or 
duty  and  seek  to  be  made  rich  in  the  gifts  and  graces 
of  the  spirit,  and  if,  above  all,  we  yield  ourselves  con- 
stantly and  openly  to  the  influence  of  Jesus  Christ,  then 
in  the  power  and  mystery  of  personality  we  become  more 
than  conduits  for  love  and  goodness.  We  become  good- 
ness incarnate  and  transmute  into  life  itself  all  high 
qualities;  so  transmuted  they  possess  the  power  of  life 
which  is  beyond  any  speech  or  definition;  it  must  be 
known  to  be  understood,  but  once  known,  it  needs  no 
other  interpreter  than  itself. 

122 


THE  POOL  AND   THE   CONDUIT 

Finally,  we  build  a  conduit  for  all  better  things  in  our 
ideals.  For  our  ideals  carry  us  beyond  our  deeds  and 
even  our  personalities.  Our  deeds  are  what  we  do,  and 
our  personality  is  what  we  are,  but  our  ideals  are  what 
we  ought  to  be.  They  are  doors  through  which  braver 
deeds  and  more  radiant  personality  may  be  made  mani- 
fest. They  are  the  pioneers  and  the  pathfinders,  they 
go  before  us  and  blaze  the  roads  that  we  are  to  follow. 
They  release  us  from  the  thraldom  of  the  present  and  the 
actual  to  make  us  free  of  an  ampler  future.  It  is  through 
the  force  of  ideals  strongly  held,  that  our  whole  capacity 
for  making  possible  a  fuller  measure  of  goodness  is  en- 
larged. 

The  engineers  who  direct  the  channels  of  rivers  and 
keep  our  harbors  open  depend  much  upon  the  assistance 
of  the  tides  and  the  currents  themselves  to  enlarge  and 
continue  the  work  they  have  begun.  Once  the  water  itself 
begins  to  flow  through  the  channels  they  have  opened, 
it  widens  and  deepens  them.  The  force  of  the  ideal  in 
life  does  something  like  that.  There  is  a  tremendous 
head  of  power  behind  all  holy  ideals,  for  they  are  drawn 
from  the  reservoirs  of  the  Eternal  and  have  behind  them 
the  driving  forces  of  the  purpose  of  God.  You  have 
only  to  begin  to  make  a  place  for  them  and  they  will 
flow  in  and  occupy  it  and  enlarge  it  and  fill  it  with  their 
holy  and  healing  tides.  This  is  far  more  than  a  figure 
of  speech.  The  experience  of  the  past  bears  it  out,  and 
we  shall  come  all  the  more  quickly  into  the  future 
toward  which  we  aspire  if  only  we  can  persuade  our- 
selves to  trust,  truth  and  goodness  more  unquestioningly, 
if  only  we  will  begin  to  do,  without  so  much  doubt  and 
debate,  what  they  ask  us  to  do  that  they  may  have  their 
way  with  us.  Directly  we  begin  to  work  with  them  we 
work  with   the  rising  tide,  and  what  seemed   impossible 

123 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

becomes  easily  possible  because  we  are  thereafter  work- 
ing, not  in  our  own  strength,  but  in  the  strength  of  God. 

Here  then  is  our  personal  task  in  a  difficult  and  com- 
plex world,  —  to  make  ourselves,  that  is,  the  channels  of 
truth  and  goodness,  love  and  justice,  without  too  much 
regard  for  what  others  are  doing  and  with  no  feeling  at 
all  of  hopelessness  or  helplessness;  for  we  are  neither 
hopeless  nor  helpless.  True  enough,  no  one  of  us  has 
had  any  great  measure  of  power,  and  most  of  us  at  the 
best  live  unnoted  and  simply  useful  lives,  but  each  one 
of  us,  thank  God,  has  his  own  openness  to  the  Divine 
will,  each  one  of  us  has  capacities  and  opportunities 
through  which  the  will  of  God  may  express  itself,  and 
each  one  of  us  may  create  about  him  some  little  order 
and  blessed  space,  in  which  the  will  of  God  made 
radiantly  real  to  us  through  the  revelation  of  Jesus 
Christ  may  do  its  perfect  and  transforming  work;  and 
if  each  one  of  us  so  submits  himself  in  deed,  personality 
and  ideal  to  Christian  truth  and  love  and  goodness,  the 
very  multiplicity  of  our  lives  will  insure  undreamed-of 
amplitude  of  holy  power.  God  is  coming  into  the 
world  as  the  tides,  through  all  their  interwoven  channels, 
possess  and  flood  the  salt  meadows  of  our  coast.  We 
have  only  to  remember  what  others  have  done  and  take 
courage   for   ourselves. 

There  is  nothing  blessed  or  happy  in  our  lives  which 
has  not  been  made  possible  for  us  through  the  unselfish 
openness  of  others  to  the  invitation  of  the  Divine.  The 
church  in  which  we  are  worshiping  would  never  have 
been  built  had  not  others  become  channels  of  the  power 
which  built  it.  Our  faith  would  have  perished  from  the 
earth  had  not  others  kept  themselves  open  to  the  truth 
and  the  power  of  it.  The  city  which  spreads  about  is 
but   the    massive   incarnation    of    the   deeds   and   powers 

124 


THE  POOL  AND   THE  CONDUIT 

and  fidelities  of  the  generations,  and  of  all  those  who 
have  gone  before  us,  only  that  endures  which  they  drew 
from  Divine  sources  and  made  real  in  holy  and  unselfish 
living.  All  else,  I  say,  is  lost  as  water  poured  out  upon 
the  sand,  but  what  they  have  made  out  of  the  Unseen 
and  Eternal  abides. 

Thank  God  for  the  old  king  of  a  great  city  who  cut 
through  the  living  rock  a  way  for  some  stream  of  living 
water  to  sing  down  from  the  high  places  of  the  hills  to 
the  thirsty  city  streets  that  little  children  might  play 
to  its  music  and  the  weary  be  refreshed  in  its  draught. 
And  thank  God  above  all,  for  every  one  who  in  true 
kingly  spirit  builds  in  deed  and  holy  passion  the  living 
way  for  truth  and  love.  So  the  world  is  blessed  in  the 
glory  and  goodness  of  God;  and  we  have  been  its  channels. 


125 


X 

THE  CHALLENGE  OF  CHRISTIAN  IDEALISM 

"  When  the  Son  of  Man  cometh,  shall  He  find  faith  on  the  earth?  "  — 
Luke  18 : 8. 

The  church  of  the  first  century  beHeved  implicitly  in 
the  imminent  return  of  her  Lord.  It  was  not  hard  for 
the  Christians  of  that  far-off  time  to  think  that  Jesus 
was  waiting  in  some  real  bodily  form  and  in  some 
celestial  habitation,  not  too  far  removed,  to  return  again 
and  that  right  speedily.  Then  heaven  and  earth  were 
near  enough,  if  need  be,  for  daily  commerce  and  the 
sense  of  the  transitoriness  of  all  earthly  things  so  colored 
the  outlook  of  the  first  disciples  upon  the  world  that 
they  thought  of  themselves  only  as  pilgrims  and  so- 
journers. Every  morning  they  looked  for  the  coming  of 
their  Lord,  and  as  the  days  passed  and  still  he  did  not 
come,  they  merely  adjourned  their  deep-held  hope.  Be- 
cause they  believed  in  his  coming  they  endured  pain  and 
persecution,  went  as  sheep  to  the  slaughter,  sought  no 
part  in  the  administration  of  the  empire,  and  lived  only 
for  its  overthrow  at  the  hands  of  One  who  should  ride 
out  conquering  and  to  conquer. 

There  are  now,  as  there  have  always  been,  groups  of 
disciples  who  hold  fast  to  such  a  hope  as  this,  but  the 
most  of  us  have  long  since  been  taught  to  spiritualize 
our  expectation  of  his  coming  and  to  find  the  fufilment 
of  that  hope,  not  in  the  cleaving  of  the  skies,  but  in  the 
remaking  of  our  own  lives,  and  —  through  the  remaking 
of  our  own  lives  —  in  the  remaking  of  the  world.     For 

126 


THE    CHALLENGE    OF    CHRISTIAN    IDEALISM 

indeed  he  is  always  returning;  not  indeed  in  bodily 
form  with  such  signs  of  his  glory  as  fill  the  pages  of 
Revelation  with  their  thunder  music,  but  in  Christian 
ideals  and  commanding  conceptions  of  life  and  holy 
challenges. 

The  forms  of  his  coming  are  manifold,  but  the  re- 
sponse which  he  asks  is,  in  its  deeper  aspects,  unchang- 
ing. He  is  always  asking  us,  in  some  form  or  other,  to 
walk  in  his  fellowship,  to  make  his  truth  our  law  and  his 
love  our  guiding  light  and  to  be  at  any  cost  true  to 
his  ideals.  So  conceived,  the  challenge  of  Jesus  is  the 
challenge  of  Christian  idealism,  and  his  voice  across  the 
years  the  voice  of  all  holier  and  better  things. 

In  all  this  our  own  part  is  hospitality,  openness, 
ungrudging  response.  This  I  conceive  to  be  in  a  large 
way  the  meaning  of  faith  as  here  employed.  It  is  the 
temper  in  which  we  receive  him,  our  whole  attitude 
toward  him  and  his  cause.  It  is  our  contribution  to  the 
triumph  of  his  kingdom,  the  point  of  connection  between 
the  challenge  of  Jesus  and  those  whom  he  challenges. 
Let  us  gather  the  whole  matter  up,  then,  in  a  single 
sentence:  the  challenge  of  Jesus  is  the  challenge  of  a 
supreme  idealism,  the  faith  which  he  asks  is  a  whole- 
hearted response  to  every  aspect  of  that  idealism. 

I.  Such  a  faith  is,  to  begin  with,  a  kind  of  elemental 
and  unshakable  confidence  in  the  reality  of  the  ideal,  a 
profound  persuasion  that  there  are  not  only  better  ways 
of  life,  but  that  these  better  ways  of  life  must  in  the 
end  prevail.  It  would  be  unnecessary  even  so  much  as 
to  mention  all  this  were  it  not  that  the  temptation  to 
despair  of  the  ideal  is  more  real  than  we  often  dream, 
and  those  who  have  failed  in  this  first  aspect  of  a  re- 
sponsive faith  —  far,  far  too  numerous.  There  are  men 
and  women   enough   in   the  world   today   for  whom   the 

127 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

hope  of  better  things  is  an  idle  dream.  They  sit  in  the 
seat  of  the  scornful,  they  are  the  prophets  of  things  as 
they  are,  the  apologists  of  the  imperfect,  the  unjust, 
the  unrighteous.  They  call  themselves  practical,  but 
their  practicality  is  nothing  other  than  a  slothful  con- 
formity to  existing  orders  and  time-worn  methods.  The 
first  condition  of  the  triumph  of  the  ideal  is  a  sheer  and 
unquenchable  faith  in  its  reality;  a  faith  indeed  which 
is  teachable  and  which  submits  itself  to  the  discipline  of 
the  years  and  profits  by  experience,  but  an  idealism, 
none  the  less,  which  accepts  no  defeat  as  final,  refuses  to 
be  halted  by  any  barriers,  proclaims  its  deathless  empire 
on  the  fields  of  its  seeming  defeat. 

"  Never  turns  its  back  but  marches  still  breast  forward, 
Never  doubts  the  clouds  will  break, 

Never  dreams,  though  right  were  worsted,  wrong  would  triumph, 
Holds  we  fall  to  rise,  a:e  bafHed  to  fight  better, 
Sleep  to  wake." 

II.  The  second  call  of  a  faith  like  this  is  for  willing- 
ness to  cooperate  with  the  ideal.  It  is  not  enough  to 
believe  in  better  things,  we  must  work  for  them.  Every 
business  enterprise,  every  political  alliance,  all  our  quest 
for  pleasure,  indeed  the  whole  enterprise  of  life,  always 
offer  the  choice  of  at  least  one  of  two  alternatives: 
either  a  conformity  confessed  or  unconfessed  to  things 
as  they  are  or  the  endeavor  after  things  as  they  ought 
to  be.  In  many  instances  the  difference  between  such 
choices  is  not  dramatically  great,  it  is  rather  a  matter 
of  emphasis,  coloring,  proportion.  In  other  cases  there 
are  such  dramatic  differences  as  constitute  the  enduring 
glory  of  those  who  obey,  the  unforgettable  shame  of 
those  who  make  the  great  refusal.  But  whether  in  great 
or  small  ways  the  constant  search  for  those  things  which 
are  above  makes  not  only  all  the  difference  in  the  world 

128 


..^rnv^ 


THE    CHALLENGE    OF    CHRISTIAN    IDEALISM 

but  makes  a  wholly  dijfiferent  world.  We  are  not  to 
underestimate  the  cost  of  it  all;  it  will  mean  again 
and  again  the  sacrifice  of  convenience,  the  choice  of  the 
more  difficult.  It  will  mean  smaller  profits,  limitations 
of  popularity,  the  willingness  to  dispense  with  ease  and 
superficial  prosperity.  But  such  an  endeavor  means, 
on  the  other  hand,  enduring  successes,  solid  achievement, 
immense  gains  in  character  and,  above  all,  a  happier  and 
better  world  established  upon  those  foundations  against 
which  even  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail, 

III,  Well,  then,  the  response  of  faith  to  the  challenge 
of  the  ideal  is  first  of  all  belief  in  the  ideal,  and  then 
cooperation  with  the  ideal,  and  then  finally  something 
which  grows  out  of  all  this,  but  lifts  itself  to  rarer  alti- 
tudes: the  willingness  to  risk  all  for  the  ideal.  A  wise 
friend  has  taught  me  a  new  use  of  the  word  adventure. 
All  great  enterprises  are  adventures,  all  noble  life  is  an 
adventure.  "  Death  is  the  great  adventure."  Safety 
and  splendor  of  achievement  do  not  dwell  under  the  same 
roof.  Lt  is  impossible  to  sail  the  high  seas  and  to  beat 
to  and  fro  behind  breakwaters  at  the  same  time.  Vic- 
tories are  won  only  upon  the  field  of  battle,  the  greatest 
goals  are  kept  for  those  who  take  to  lonely  and  un- 
chartered roads.  Youth  answers  eagerly  to  such  con- 
siderations as  these,  but  maturity  questions  them,  and 
age  too  often  denies  them.  More  than  that,  wealth, 
station,  responsibility,  ease  and  honor  are  the  age-old 
foes  of  the  open  road  and  the  uncharted  sea.  Faith  is 
always  a  light  across  the  sea,  the  far  call  of  undis- 
covered land,  the  lure  of  unpassed  horizons. 

All  great  things  depend  for  their  triumph  upon  just 
such  a  temper  as  this.  Truth  always  calls  for  faith  as 
the  one  unescapable  condition  of  its  triumph.  How 
helpless  truth  is  when  men  will  neither  believe  nor  follow 

129 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

it!  A  Galileo  may  retell  for  us  the  story  of  the  heavens, 
shift  the  centers  of  sidereal  systems,  release  the  earth 
from  its  fixed  station  and  send  it  swinging  in  rhythmic 
freedom  of  motion  around  the  sun  itself,  but  if  there  is 
no  faith  in  the  truth  of  his  discovery  our  imaginations 
will  be  still  bound  by  the  littlenesses  and  contradictions 
of  the  ancient  astronomy.  Charles  Darwin  may  trace  for 
us  the  origin  of  species  and  give  us  the  key  to  the  very 
creative  methods  of  God,  show  us  by  what  long  ascents 
life  has  climbed  from  level  to  level,  and  so  secure  for  us 
new  conceptions  of  the  power  and  wisdom  of  the  Eternal, 
but  if  there  is  no  answering  faith  in  the  minds  of  men 
there  will  be  no  going  out  of  our  reverence  to  meet  such 
new  revelations  of  the  strength  and  wisdom  of  God,  no 
kindling  of  our  souls  to  cosmic  music. 

Truth  is  always  saying,  "  When  I  come  to  men  will 
they  receive  me,  believe  me,  love  and  follow  me;  are 
they   always   awaiting   me,   confident   of   my   triumph?  " 

Love  asks  the  same  question.  The  proffer  of  love  may 
lie  about  us  like  light,  but  if  we  will  not  receive  it, 
what  good  will  love  do  us?  Love  will  remake  our  world 
if  we  will  give  it  room  and  stead,  scatter  our  shadows, 
master  our  enmities,  reconcile  our  differences,  establish 
the  empire  of  our  dreams,  but  only  as  love  meets  faith, 
only  as  love  finds  in  our  whole  attitude  confidences  upon 
which  it  may  establish  itself,  wills  through  which  its 
decrees  may  be  made  operative,  souls  in  which  it  may 
set  us  its  blessed  and  transforming  administration. 
Righteousness  demands  the  same  response.  We  have 
never  been  able  to  commit  ourselves  to  new  methods, 
follow  leaders  whom  God  has  raised  up  for  the  vindi- 
cation of  struggling  goodness  or  dethrone  hoary  and 
entrenched  wrongs,  save  as  faith  has  wrought  with  good- 
ness as  a  comrade. 

130 


THE    CHALLENGE    OF    CHRISTIAN    IDEALISM 

All  these  things  illustrate  in  broken  fashion  the  signifi- 
cance of  this  great  question  of  Jesus:  "When  the  Son 
of  Man  Cometh,  shall  he  find  faith  on  the  earth?  " 
There  is  no  doubt  about  his  return.  He  conies  to  us  in 
all  holy  ways  of  conceiving  and  conducting  our  lives,  in 
flaming  ideals,  in  revelations  of  the  full  possibility  of 
Christian  discipleship  always  more  ample  and  compelling, 
in  unselfishnesses,  sacrificial  opportunities,  —  the  age-old 
challenge  of  Christ.  How  will  we  receive  him?  Are 
we  willing  to  let  him  have  his  way?  In  the  form  in 
which  Jesus  is  coming  to  us  now,  is  he  finding  faith 
on  the  earth;  is  our  quality  of  openness,  willingness, 
devotion,  commensurate  with  the  call  of  the  best;  are 
our  lives  really  open  doors  to  higher  and  holier  things? 
Is  the  Son  of  Man  finding  faith  on  the  earth? 

Take  politics,  for  example.  The  challenge  of  the 
Master  comes  to  us  in  new  political  conceptions.  I  do 
not  believe  for  a  moment  that  it  is  irreverent  to  identify 
the  spirit  of  Jesus  with  what  is  best  and  most  heartening 
in  the  new  political  possibilities  which  face  us.  Why 
should  he  not  return  in  better  politics?  He  has  given  us 
the  hope  of  the  Kingdom;  he  has  taught  us  to  dream  of 
gracious  and  blessed  fellowship;  he  has  kindled  our 
passion  for  states  whose  officers  shall  be  peace  and 
whose  exactors  righteousness;  he  has  taught  us  never  to 
be  content  with  the  stained,  the  unworthy  or  the  unjust. 

His  challenge,  then,  meets  us  on  every  side.  Is  it 
possible  to  carry  on  our  politics  in  the  spirit  of  pure 
idealism?  Can  we  plant  our  political  growths  in  the  soil 
of  a  fine  unselfishness  instead  of  a  foul  sordidness,  and 
still  hope  to  see  them  flourish?  Is  it  possible  to  trans- 
form and  consecrate  that  vast  capacity  for  leadership 
which  so  many  of  our  poHtical  bosses  have  shown  and 
which    they    have    never    for    a    moment    purely   or    un- 

131 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

selfishly  devoted  to  any  high  and  hallowed  cause?  Can 
political  parties  make  their  appeal  upon  reasonable 
platforms  which  they  sincerely  mean  to  carry  out,  utterly 
discarding  their  machinery,  their  trickery,  their  bribery 
and  their  graft,  and  still  hope  to  triumph?  Do  we  really 
possess  the  moral  capacities  of  redeemed  politics;  are 
we  equal  to  the  burdens  which  such  demands  lay  upon 
us;  are  we  strong  enough  to  suffer  what  must  needs  be 
sufTered  before  the  Republic  shall  become  truly  the 
Republic  of  God?  These  are  questions  which  are  upon 
all  our  lips.  The  asking  of  them  is  the  sign  of  the  Re- 
public's awaking;  the  right  answer  of  them  will  be  the 
earnest  of  the  Republic's  redemption.  And  yet  what 
are  they  after  all  but  the  interpretation  into  the  language 
of  our  own  time  of  the  challenge  of  Jesus  to  his  own 
doubtful  and  hesitant  friends? 

The  Son  of  Man  comes  in  new  industrial  conceptions. 
Can  we  be  done  forever  with  our  wasteful  and  unholy 
competitions;  can  we  subdue  our  inordinate  passion  for 
gain  and  exalt  instead  a  patient  passion  for  human 
betterment;  can  we  conduct  our  businesses  in  the  spirit 
of  a  stainless  honor,  not  only  in  our  immediate  dealings 
with  those  with  whom  we  do  business,  but  in  our  remote 
and  indirect  dealings  with  our  competitors?  Can  we  do 
away  with  jealousies  and  waste,  and  organize  business 
into  fellowships  which  shall  not  only  be  great  in  their 
methods  and  outlook,  but  divinely  great  in  their  spirit? 
Can  we  cease  using  men  as  our  tools  and  work  with 
them  as  comrades;  can  we  consecrate  our  strength  to 
the  needs  of  the  incapable,  the  ungrateful  and  even  the 
unjust?  Can  we  so  saturate  our  industry  with  the  spirit 
of  the  Lord  Christ  that  business  shall  become  really  a 
sacrament,  suggesting  in  its  fellowships  and  its  services 
the  reincarnate  spirit  of  the  Lamb  slain  from  the  foun- 

132 


THE    CHALLENGE    OF    CHRISTIAN    IDEALISM 

dation  of  the  world?  Have  we  daring  enough  to  commit 
ourselves  to  such  adventures  as  these  and  swing  great 
business  enterprises  out  upon  divine  audacities  and  holy 
confidences  in  the  word  of  Jesus  Christ?  "  When  the 
Son  of  Man  comes,  shall  he  find  faith  on  the  earth?  " 

The  Son  of  Man  is  coming  in  new  conceptions  of 
brotherhood.  We  hear  his  voice  in  the  wailing  cry  of 
children,  we  see  his  approach  in  the  lonely,  in  the  for- 
gotten and  the  downtrodden.  His  kindling  challenges 
come  to  us  in  hopes  which  flame  and  convictions  of 
social  sin  which  will  not  let  us  rest.  Have  we  faith 
enough  for  it?  Do  we  run  out  to  meet  it  with  expecta- 
tion, hail  it  with  a  joy  which  gathers  intensity  since 
that  coming  has  been  so  long  deferred?  Are  we  all 
ready  to  say,  "  Yes,  I  am  heartsick  with  so  much  of 
this;  I  taste  on  my  bread  the  salt  bitterness  of  the 
tears  of  the  hungry;  my  comfort  is  a  reproach  and  my 
luxury  will  not  let  me  rest  while  want  is  abroad  and 
poverty  crouches  at  countless  doors.  I  will  pay  my 
part  of  the  price  of  a  better  world."  Are  we  willing  to 
become  crusaders  of  the  new  time  and  to  mark  upon  our 
breasts  the  sign  of  the  Cross  while  the  skies  rock  with 
our  shout,  "  God  wills  it,  God  wills  it!  "  As  the  Son  of 
Man  comes  in  a  hope  and  passion  of  a  better  human 
fellowship,  is  he  finding  faith  on  the  earth? 

He  comes  to  us  in  new  conceptions  of  manhood  and 
womanhood;  in  humility  and  obediences;  in  the  purging 
of  our  selfishnesses,  the  exile  of  our  conceits.  He  comes 
to  declare  us  sons  of  a  common  Father  and  helpless 
without  the  redemptive  love  of  God.  He  comes  to 
strip  us  of  our  pride,  break  down  our  self-content,  loosen 
our  weary,  weary  hold  upon  what  rather  burdens  than 
sustains  us,  that  we  may  fall  into  his  Father's  saving 
arms.     He  comes  to  write  new  lines  in  our  faces,  put  a 

133 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

new  light  in  our  eyes,  make  our  souls  gracious  and  beauti- 
ful, and  make  us  citizens  of  the  unseen.  Have  we  faith 
enough  for  all  that?  Are  our  souls  open  and  eager? 
Do  we  welcome  every  discipline  which  purifies,  all 
transforming  experiences,  every  indication  of  his  love 
and  purpose?  As  the  Son  of  Man  is  coming  in  such 
gracious  possibilities  of  new  and  better  life,  is  he  finding 
faith? 

The  challenge  of  Jesus  comes  to  us  in  changing  con- 
ceptions of  the  conduct  of  the  Christian  Church,  The 
Church  is  the  organ  of  receptive  faith,  and  the  fellow- 
ship of  those  who  believe  in  the  regnancies  of  Jesus 
Christ,  are  willing  to  trust  to  his  methods,  be  mastered 
by  his  temper,  and  seek  his  flaming  and  consecrated 
ends.  The  Church  may  be  a  multitude  of  things  be- 
sides, but  this  above  all  she  must  be,  must  continue  to 
be.  She  is  to  seek  out  and  declare  to  men  the  ways  in 
which  Jesus  is  always  returning,  the  forms  in  which  his 
spirit  seeks  to  be  reincarnated,  the  aspects  of  life  which 
are  to  be  subdued  to  his  holy  purposes.  The  Church 
gathers  together  those  who  await  the  coming  of  her 
Lord,  who  are  eager  for  the  triumph  of  unselfish  love, 
who  wait  for  brotherhood  as  watchmen  wait  for  the 
morning,  and  whose  passion  is  an  unquenchable  fire. 
Just  as  long  ago  his  disciples  gathered  together  in  antici- 
pation of  his  coming,  so  his  disciples  gather  still.  They 
looked  up  toward  the  clouds,  we  look  abroad  across  the 
world  of  men;  they  searched  the  starry  spaces  of  the 
sky,  we  search  the  roads  of  toil  and  sorrow;  they  looked 
to  see  him  coming  in  legions  of  rejoicing  angels,  we 
expect  him  in  the  comradeship  of  simple  and  devout 
souls,  and  everywhere  our  expectation  is  his  oppor- 
tunity. 

It  does  seem  as  if  the  God  of  the  Church  had,  by  the 

134 


THE    CHALLENGE    OF    CHRISTIAN    IDEALISM 

historical  processes  of  the  last  three  hundred  years,  been 
bringing  the  Church  to  the  place  where  she  would  be 
compelled  to  recognize  this  central  task  of  hers,  and  by 
her  faithful  performance  of  it  either  to  live  or  to  die. 
The  Church  has  been  stripped  of  a  multitude  of  things 
which  were  but  yesterday  her  apparent  glory.  Her  unity 
has  been  broken,  her  authority  is  only  a  memory.  Men 
no  longer  flee  to  the  Church  as  to  a  sanctuary  or  bow 
their  knees  before  her  altar  through  fear.  The  Church 
possesses  today  no  great  measure  of  social  consideration, 
she  is  no  longer  the  single  and  undisputed  guardian  of 
truth,  she  has  no  secrets  as  to  the  unseen  and  eternal 
which  others  may  not  share.  The  larger  social  forces  are 
working  against  and  not  for  her.  What,  then,  has  she 
left?  The  master  thing  in  her  life?  The  Church  still 
possesses  her  unchanging  and  unchangeable  inheritance, 
her  capacity  to  respond  to  the  challenge  of  Jesus  Christ, 
go  out  in  his  temper  to  spend  herself  for  his  ideals,  to 
live  or  die  in  his  spirit.  Has  she  faith  enough  for  all 
this?  The  mightiest  temptation  which  the  Church  is 
facing  today  is  the  temptation  to  conquer  the  world  by 
conforming  to  its  standards  and  accepting  its  methods. 
Every  effort  to  bring  in  the  Kingdom  of  God  by  vio- 
lence, to  unduly  exalt  organization  and  method,  to  dis- 
trust gentleness,  patience  and  utter  openness  to  the 
truth,  to  follow  blind  leaders  whose  strength  lies  in  their 
power  of  abuse,  who  ban  rather  than  bless,  who  seek  to 
save  the  men  on  the  street  by  the  methods  of  the 
street;  all  this,  I  say,  is  so  deep  an  apostasy  that  the 
Church,  hard  pressed  as  she  is,  may  well  seek  first  of 
all  forgiveness  for  herself  before  she  seeks  forgiveness 
for  the  world.  Give  the  Church,  I  beseech  you,  a 
greater  place  in  your  lives,  but  do  not  dictate  the  terms 
upon    which    you    will    grant    her    your    comradeship; 

135 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

accept,  rather,  the  eternal  conditions  of  the  Lord  of 
gentleness,  vision  and  sacrifice. 

Jesus  Christ  is  coming  in  new  conceptions  of  world 
relationships,^  in  ancient  nations  reborn  almost  in  a  day, 
in  visions  of  peace  and  brotherhood,  in  the  hope  of  a 
day  when  war  shall  be  no  more  and  nation  shall  walk 
with  nation  in  holy  and  untroubled  fellowships.  Have 
we  faith  enough  for  all  that?  Are  we  willing  to  hasten 
the  day  when  the  millions  of  men  who  are  now  being 
gathered  upon  the  frontiers  of  jealous  states  shall  be 
dismissed  to  the  tasks  of  peace;  when  the  gray  wolves 
of  the  sea  shall  prowl  no  more  from  port  to  port  or 
threaten  with  the  terror  of  their  guns  the  cities  of  the 
peoples?  Do  we  dare  trust,  in  international  relation- 
ships, the  same  motives  which  have  long  since  come  to 
govern  men  in  their  relationship  one  with  another?  Is 
the  parliament  of  men  an  impossible  dream;  the  federa- 
tion of  the  world  but  a  poet's  lyric  fancy?  These  are 
grave  questions.  They  are  agitating  chanceries,  being 
debated  in  cabinets;  occupying  senates  and  parliaments. 
But  when  we  have  come  to  the  heart  of  them  they  are 
nothing  more  than  a  repetition  of  the  challenge  of  Jesus, 
"When  the  Son  of  Man  cometh,  shall  he  find  faith  on 
the  earth?  " 

IV.  Surely  there  is  no  need  of  further  illustrations. 
Surely  we  have  come  to  see  that  what  Jesus  is  asking  of 
us  all  is  just  a  great  confidence  in  his  supremacy,  an 
utter  willingness  to  follow  his  methods  at  any  cost,  a 
willingness  to  dare  as  men  have  never  dared  before  for 
the  sake  of  the  ideals  he  has  given  us.  I  think  we  may, 
by  such   tests   as   these,   divide   men   this   morning   into 

*  This  was  written  before  such  conclusions  as  it  breathes  were  shattered  by 
the  guns  of  Europe,  but  I  will  not  change  a  word.  It  is,  it  must  be  true,  or  the 
hope  of  our  Lord's  coming  is  an  idle  dream,  his  expected  empire  the  supreme 
delusion  of  humanity. 

136 


THE    CHALLENGE    OF    CHRISTIAN    IDEALISM 

two  great  groups.  On  the  one  side  are  those  who  have 
no  faith  in  what  Jesus  Christ  stands  for,  who  do  not 
expect  nor  desire  the  supremacy  of  such  a  love  as  his, 
who  do  not  beUeve  that  Hfe  can  be  successfully  carried 
on  in  any  such  way  as  he  desires,  who  dismiss  as  im- 
possible dreams  all  his  expectations  of  a  holier  time, 
who  believe  that  peace  is  an  iridescent  dream  and  the 
only  thing  which  will  turn  the  edge  of  the  sword  a 
sharper,  heavier  sword  still.  Such  as  these  have  already 
answered  directly  or  indirectly  the  challenge  of  Jesus. 
He  does  not  find  in  them  any  such  responsive  faith  as 
for  a  moment  makes  possible  the  triumph  of  his  king- 
dom in  their  lives  or  interests.  On  the  other  hand  are 
the  dreamers,  the  adventurers  of  the  spirit  who  dare  to 
put  all  to  the  test,  the  devout  who  have  waited  long  in 
holy  expectation  of  better  things,  all  the  good  soldiers 
of  high  and  unstained  causes;  all  those  who  believe  that 
love  is  stronger  than  hate,  that  gentleness  in  the  end 
is  an  unconquerable  weapon,  that  loving  patience  wears 
down  many  foes,  and  that  only  in  the  regnancy  of  Jesus 
and  the  realization  of  his  kingdom  shall  we  find  any 
enduring  peace.  Such  as  these  do  really  offer  the  faith 
which  makes  possible  the  triumph  of  better  things;  their 
hospitalities  are  doors  of  the  kingdom,  and  in  their 
willingness  to  receive  him  the  triumph  of  the  Master 
is  assured. 

Again  and  again  the  Christ  of  the  years  has  met  his 
disciples  with  flaming  and  heartening  challenges,  but  he 
has  never  asked  of  any  age  a  more  heroic  consecration 
than  he  asks  of  ours,  or  offered  to  any  time  a  more 
splendid  coronation  if  so  be  we  conquer  in  his  strength. 
He  is  asking  men  to  enroll  in  his  army,  in  their  sheer 
devotion  to  the  deathless  causes  of  the  spirit.  Is  there 
any  greater  thing  which  the  men  of  any  age  have  been 

137 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

asked  to  do  than  we  are  asked  to  do  —  to  exalt  the 
unseen  and  eternal  in  the  face  of  the  massive  afhrma- 
tions  of  modern  materialism,  to  trace  the  will  of  God  in 
all  the  revelations  of  modern  thought,  to  seek  the 
righteousness  of  God  in  all  the  vast  involutions  of  con- 
temporaneous affairs,  to  enthrone  Christ  as  Lord  of  the 
wealth  and  might  and  possibility  of  such  a  century  as 
ours?  If  the  sound  of  such  a  trumpet  blowing  across 
the  hills  of  time  does  not  arouse  us  from  our  lethargy, 
then  we  are  hopeless.  Three  hundred  years  ago,  in  the 
travail  of  the  German  Reformation,  when  the  Protestant 
Churches  were  to  be  gathered  together  at  Augsburg  for 
conference  and  cooperation,  Prince  Wolfgang  von  Anhalt 
set  out  for  that  convocation.  His  friends  remonstrated 
with  him.  "  Many  a  time,"  said  the  old  soldier,  "  have 
I  ridden  to  war  to  help  my  friends,  so  now  for  once  I 
will  take  horse  for  the  Lord  Christ."  Who  of  us  will 
take  horse  for  the  Lord  Christ? 

"  The  Son  of  God  goes  forth  to  war,  a  kingly  crown  to  gain, 
His  blood-red  banner  streams  afar.     Who  follows  in  his  train?  " 


138 


XI 

CLOUDS  WITHOUT  WATER 

"  Clouds  they  are,  without  water."  —  Jude  1  :  12. 

The  General  Epistle  of  Jude  is  the  third  shortest  and 
quite  likely  the  least  read  of  the  books  of  the  New- 
Testament,  though  the  ascription  with  which  it  ends 
has  dismissed  waiting  congregations  for  generations, 
voicing  like  noble  organ  music  our  profoundest  adora- 
tions. The  date  and  authorship  of  the  Epistle  have 
long  been  the  subject  of  wholly  irreconcilable  contro- 
versies; but  all  the  commentators  agree  in  this  —  that 
it  was  born  of  some  pretty  acid  situation  in  the  early 
Church.  False  teachers  had  arisen  who  were  beginning 
to  mislead  disciples  none  too  strongly  established  in 
Christian  fidelity  at  the  best,  and  therefore  the  more 
ready  to  be  swept  far  from  their  true  course  by  any 
wind  of  false  doctrine.  The  leaders  of  the  Church  felt 
the  situation  keenly  and  wrote  such  letters  as  lie  be- 
tween the  Epistles  of  Paul  and  the  Book  of  Revelation 
to  warn,  to  strengthen  and  to  guide.  They  did  not  fail 
in  such  denunciation  as  religious  discussions  have  always 
called  out,  and  the  Epistle  of  Jude  is  particularly  rich 
in  an  acrid  abuse  of  these  ancient  heresiarchs.  In  a 
long,  stinging  sentence  they  are  called  "  hidden  rocks," 
"  shepherds  that  without  fear  feed  themselves,"  "  au- 
tumn trees  without  fruit,  twice  dead,"  "  wild  waves  of 
the  sea  foaming  out  their  own  shame,"  "  wandering 
stars  for  whom  the  blackness  of  darkness  hath  been 
reserved  forever." 

139 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

Against  what  pestilent  heresies  such  indictments  as 
these  were  directed  or  whether  or  not  they  deserved  it 
who  were  so  scourged,  we  shall  never  know;  but  there 
is  at  the  very  heart  of  these  biting  figures  one  phrase 
so  rich  in  suggestion,  so  perpetual  in  application  that  we 
may  well  consider  it  together  this  morning.  Those 
ancient  foes  of  the  faith  of  the  Church  are  called  "  clouds 
without  water,  driven  by  the  winds."  The  figure  itself 
is  a  part  of  all  the  marvelous  imagery  of  the  meaning 
of  water  to  a  thirsty  land  which  the  Bible  is  always 
employing.  Such  a  figure  as  this  has  meaning  only  in 
a  thirsty  land;  only  those  who  have  long  searched  the 
burning  sky  for  some  promise  of  "  the  early  and  the 
latter  rain,"  and  searched  in  vain;  only  those  who  have 
seen  some  cloud  of  promise  rise  above  the  horizon  and 
then,  undone  by  hot  winds,  leave  the  earth  still  un- 
watered,  could  give  to  the  world  so  vivid  a  figure  of  the 
life  which  promises  much  and  denies  its  own  promise. 

For  clouds  have  many  ministries,  but  their  supreme 
service  is  to  carry  water  from  the  sea  to  the  thirsty 
land.  They  are  born  of  the  sea  and  the  sun  and  the 
winds.  They  are  the  children  of  the  sea  —  not  indeed 
in  the  literal  sense  that  all  clouds  are  sea-born,  but  in 
the  larger  sense  that  all  our  continental  water  supplies 
depend  upon  the  motherhood  of  the  sea.  If  the  clouds 
were  not  from  time  to  time  as  it  were  rebaptized  in  the 
oceans,  they  would  finally  fail.  They  are  the  children 
of  the  sun,  for  it  is  through  the  expansion  of  the  sun- 
warmed  atmosphere  that  evaporation  is  made  possible. 
They  are  the  children  of  the  winds,  for  the  winds  bear 
the  ;'cloud-masses  upon  their  wings,  gathering  them  for 
the  storm  or  undoing  and  scattering  them.  The  stuff 
of  which  clouds  are  to  be  made  is  everywhere  about  us. 
The  air  is  never  more  luminous  or  the  light  more  moving 

140 


CLOUDS  WITHOUT  WATER 

in  its  quality  than  in  those  high  days  when  from  horizon 
to  horizon  not  a  cloud  is  seen,  though  the  very  quality 
of  the  light  testifies  to  a  tomorrow  of  storm.  The  sun- 
sets of  such  days  as  these  always  draw  across  the 
western  horizon  a  veil  of  mists  so  luminous  as  hardly  to 
be  discerned  except  for  the  light  behind  it;  but  none  the 
less  a  veil  of  mist  which  widens  and  darkens  until 
the  skies  are  overcast.  Out  of  such  stuff  as  this,  then, 
the  world  of  clouds  is  built  —  unsubstantial,  but  rich 
and  beautiful.  It  is  a  dull  imagination  which  does  not 
answer  to  the  wonder  of  the  world  of  clouds  or  discern 
in  them  some  trailing  of  the  garments  of  God.  They 
build  gateways  for  the  dawn  and  sunset,  they  pave 
celestial  spaces  with  their  fretted  gold,  they  pile  them- 
selves in  castellated  masses  against  the  horizon,  they 
come  up  before  the  winds,  terrible  as  an  army  with 
banners.  They  possess  the  mass  and  amplitude  of 
mountain  ranges. 

"  They  are,"  says  Ruskin,  who  knew  and  loved  them 
as  few  have  done,  "  not  yards  of  air  traversed  in  an 
instant  by  the  flying  form,  but  valleys  of  changing 
atmosphere  leagues  over;  that  slow  motion  of  ascending 
curves  which  we  can  hardly  trace,  is  a  boiling  energy 
of  exulting  vapor  rushing  into  the  heaven  a  thousand 
feet  a  minute;  and  that  toppling  angle  whose  sharp 
edge  almost  escapes  notice  in  the  multitudinous  forms 
around  it,  is  a  nodding  precipice  of  storms,  three  thou- 
sand feet  from  base  to  summit."  Even  the  wonder  of 
the  arching  firmament  domed  with  blue  would  be 
wanting  in  wealth  and  meaning  without  the  clouds. 
There  day  after  day  for  us  God  paints  His  pictures, 
with  the  winds  for  His  brushes,  the  sky  for  His  canvas, 
and  the  spectrum  of  light  for  His  colors.  "  Nature  has 
fifty  pictures,  made  up  each  of  millions  of  minor  thoughts 

141 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

—  fifty  aisles  penetrating  through  angelic  chapels  to  the 
Shekinah  of  the  blue  —  fifty  hollow  ways  among  be- 
wildered hills  —  each  with  their  own  nodding  rocks  and 
cloven  precipices  and  radiant  summits  and  robing  vapors, 
but  all  unlike  each  other,  except  in  beauty,  all  bearing 
witness  to  the  unwearied,  exhaustless  operation  of  the 
Infinite  Mind."  And  yet  this  would  be  wanting  in  its 
last  meaning  if  the  clouds  themselves  failed  in  their 
essential  service;  if  they  brought  no  water  to  a  needy 
world. 

This  is  their  God-given  task,  and  no  imagination  can 
easily  surpass  the  sober  scientific  statement  of  what  they 
accomplish.  There  is  no  harvest  nor  any  meadow  nor 
any  forest  which  is  not  in  debt  to  the  clouds.  Beneath 
the  brooding  motherhood  of  the  clouds  they  have  come 
into  being;  without  the  brooding  motherhood  of  the 
clouds  they  would  cease  to  be.  All  the  rivers  which  run 
to  all  the  seas  are  but  the  gifts  of  the  clouds  to  the 
earth.  There  is  nowhere  any  deep-channeled  watercourse 
which  has  not  been  worn  by  the  burden  of  the  clouds, 
nor  any  mantling  snow  nor  any  glacial  ice  which  is  not 
their  gift.  They  have  wrought  for  us  the  abysm  of  the 
canyon  of  the  Colorado,  as  they  have  edged  for  us  the 
sheer  escarpments  of  the  Alps  and  Himalayas.  The 
clouds  turn  your  waterwheels,  they  weave  your  cloth, 
they  shape  your  iron,  they  shine  in  every  electric  light, 
they  are  at  our  service  in  every  water  faucet.  These 
driving  mists  of  all  created  things  seemingly  most  un- 
substantial are  in  the  economy  of  nature  the  carriers  of 
power  and  servants  of  life,  so  important  that  our  world 
without  them  would  be  a  desert,  and  the  failure  of  their 
ministry  a  cosmic  calamity. 

No  wonder  then  that  Jude's  figure  has  a  force  and 
searching    suggestion    which    make    it    one    of    the   great 

142 


CLOUDS  WITHOUT  WATER 

figures  of  the  New  Testament.  For  we  too  in  our  per- 
sonality and  the  promise  of  it  are  instruments  of  in- 
calculable power.  There  is  no  influence  like  conse- 
crated personality  nor  any  failure  like  the  failure  of 
personality  to  fulfil  its  promise.  All  the  rich  content  of 
life  is  the  outcome  of  consecrated  personality  working  in 
happy  power  toward  holy  ends;  and  when  this  fails, 
either  in  the  individual  or  in  the  group,  we  find  our- 
selves living  in  a  kind  of  moral  desert,  barren  and  bitter. 
We  have  great  need,  therefore,  to  take  account  of  our- 
selves and  to  examine  our  own  lives  to  see  if  by  any 
chance  we  also  are  "  clouds  without  water." 

Every  minister  who  preaches  from  this  text  ought  to 
remember  that  it  was  first  of  all  applied  to  the  church's 
ministry,  and  to  ask  himself  whether  he  is  wanting  in 
real  power  or  fulfils  the  promise  of  his  office.  It  is 
strangely  easy  to  be  much  occupied  in  the  Christian 
ministry,  to  be  troubled  about  many  things,  to  preach 
many  and  earnest  sermons,  and  even  to  spend  oneself 
in  travail  of  mind  and  spirit  and  body,  and  yet  to  pro- 
duce no  results  at  all  proportionate  either  to  the  office 
or  the  opportunity.  All  high  offices  fail  in  their  essential 
power  more  easily  than  the  more  common  and  practical 
offices. 

It  is  easy  to  see  when  a  furrow  is  not  well  driven  or 
a  field  well  sown;  it  is  not  so  easy  to  discover  the  real 
weakness  in  high  spiritual  endeavors,  to  find  out  why 
the  spoken  word  returns  fruitlessly  upon  the  preacher 
or  the  service  fails  in  the  end  which  is  sought.  I  shall 
keep  to  the  end  of  this  sermon  any  suggestion  as  to 
ways  of  correction  and  empowerment.  It  is  enough  now 
for  the  minister  himself  to  recognize  that  he  too  may 
be  a  cloud  without  water,  and  to  ask  of  God  a  more 
fruitful  and  blessed  ministry. 

143 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

This  text  was  spoken  of  teachers,  and  the  teacher 
today,  as  two  thousand  years  ago,  may  look  to  his  own 
work,  for  it  is  possible  to  be  accurate  and  industrious, 
to  be  much  concerned  about  facts  and  discipline  and 
examinations,  and  a  shallow  kind  of  culture,  and  yet  to 
be  wanting  in  the  power  of  discipline  and  transformation 
of  character,  which  are  the  only  worthy  ends  of  all 
education.  The  real  office  of  the  teacher  is  in  a  kind  of 
spiritual  illumination,  a  kind  of  quickening  of  life  by 
life,  beneath  the  sheltering  conduct  of  which  all  great 
and  worthy  things  are  nurtured. 

For  the  soul  of  youth  is  a  God-given  field  lying  open 
to  all  the  winds  which  blow,  from  which  the  harvests 
of  a  happier  future  are  to  be  gathered;  and  under  God 
the  teacher  is  the  mediating  instrument  of  it  all.  Every 
thoughtful  man  must  feel  that  with  all  our  passion  for 
education  here  in  America  we  are  missing,  more  largely 
than  we  ought,  the  real  ends  of  education.  We  are  far 
too  easily  misled.  There  is  a  kind  of  hysterical  element 
in  our  American  life  which  shows  itself  in  politics, 
religion,  business,  and  the  stormy  fluctuations  of  pub- 
lic opinion,  in  the  light  of  which  our  schools  and  col- 
leges must  be  judged.  And  where  we  who  are  their 
leaders  and  teachers  have  failed  to  fulfill  our  promise,  we 
too  are  clouds  without  water. 

What  shall  I  say  of  the  almost  endless  applications  of 
a  figure  like  this?  Here  is  something  by  which  father- 
hood and  motherhood  must  be  tested,  and  all  the  rela- 
tionships of  the  home,  our  businesses  and  our  profes- 
sions; all  the  simple  things  of  the  constant  days,  and 
the  vaster  movements  and  interests  in  which  we  are  all 
involved.  We  share  together  the  feeling  that  our  ideal- 
isms have  not  fulfilled  their  promise,  our  visions  have 
somehow   failed   us,   and   that  our  world   has   been   long 

144 


CLOUDS   WITHOUT  WATER 

enough  under  the  influence  of  high  and  redemptive 
forces  to  have  been  somehow  a  happier  and  better  world 
than  it  is  this  morning.  We  are  searching  far  and  wide 
for  the  remedy.  May  the  remedy  not  be  nearer  than 
we  dream,  more  simple  than  we  suppose? 

Above  all  that,  we  who  are  concerned  with  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  who  love  it,  serve  it,  and    through  whose 
life   the    Church    itself   lives,    may   consider    the   ancient 
indictment    of    Jude.      Christianity,    through    its    divine 
commission,  has  no  lesser  task  than  to  possess  and  trans- 
form life.     Has  that  been  done?     Christianity  has  built 
its    cathedrals,    organized    its    churches,    proclaimed    its 
gospel    in    Europe    for    above    a    thousand    years;     the 
standard  of  the  cross  was  the  first  standard  to  be  set 
up  on  the  soil  of  a  new  world.     America  has  been  Chris- 
tian since  the  morning  of  her  history,  and  yet  the  more 
massive   manifestations   of   the   common    life   of    Europe 
and  America  today  are  not  Christian.     A  multitude  of 
shadows  obscure  the  light  and  beneath  the  brooding  of 
the   spirit   of   God    there   are   sterile   and   barren   places 
which   reproach   and   pain   us.      Nay,    I    would   not   lose 
all  this  in  a  too  general  application.     Here  is  our  own 
church,  rooted  through  the  decades  in  the  life  of  a  his- 
toric city,  strong  in  fellowship  and  resource,  unusual  in 
power  and  situation.     Is  the  outcome  of  our  life  what  it 
ought  to  be?     Are  we  fulfilling  our  full  promise?     Are 
there   such   harvests   of   love   and   goodness   and    fidelity 
growing  beneath  our  fostering  care  as  justify  us  before 
God    and   our    neighbors,    as    make    us    the    blessing   we 
ought  to  be?     I  fear  there  must  be  but  one  answer  to  all 
these  questions.     We  are  not  asked  to  disallow  or  under- 
value what  we  are  or  do.     We  are  to    remember    grate- 
fully  fidelities,    loyalties,   services   and   goodnesses   which 
are  our  common   possession;    but  we  must    still  confess 

145 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

before  God  that  we  have  not  rendered  our  full  ministry, 
we  must  bow  ourselves  to  the  ancient  judgment,  "  Clouds 
without  water." 

How  may  we  correct  it  all?  Here,  too,  the  clouds  may 
become  our  teachers.  There  is  always  some  sound 
reason  for  a  cloud  which  fails  in  its  service.  Every 
cloud  has  water  in  it,  for  the  cloud  itself  is  water;  but 
there  is  a  point  of  saturation  short  of  which  no  pre- 
cipitation is  possible.  Short  of  that  point  the  moisture 
is  scattered  and  swallowed  up  in  the  void  and  vastness 
of  the  upper  sky.  The  clouds  are  at  the  mercy  of  the 
climates  through  which  they  pass.  They  are  again  and 
again  undone  by  conditions  which  literally  suck  them 
dry  and  fray  their  fabric  without  ever  giving  them  a 
chance  to  discharge  themselves  in  rain.  They  are 
dependent  upon  changes  in  temperature  which  compel 
precipitation. 

In  general,  clouds  want  a  full  baptism  in  the  sea,  and 
some  challenging  occasion  to  fulfil  their  full  office.  We 
too  are  like  that.  There  is  a  certain  under-saturation 
of  the  soul  in  goodness  and  devotion  which  makes 
life  strangely  ineffective.  Our  world  today  is  not  so 
much  wanting  in  goodness  as  hampered  by  a  kind  of 
scattered  and  diffused  goodness.  Our  occupations,  our 
pleasures,  our  interests  are  hostile  to  a  full  spiritual 
devotion.  Such  a  life  as  ours  is  always  tending  to  dry 
up  the  spiritual  springs. 

Here,  I  suppose,  is  the  old,  old  contradiction  between 
the  world  and  religion,  always  so  strangely  felt,  always 
so  difficult  to  overcome.  It  takes  a  deal  of  spiritual 
coherence  to  stand  against  the  manifold  occupations  of  a 
society  like  ours;  too  many  enjoyments,  too  many 
interests,  even  worthy  interests,  tend  to  diffuse^and 
dissolve  the  real  power  of  life  until,  busy  as_we^are,  we 

146 


CLOUDS  WITHOUT  WATER 

have  nothing  commensurate  with  our  toil  to  show  for  it 
all.  Our  pleasures  are  like  winds  from  the  desert.  I 
do  not  see  how  even  the  strongest  and  most  devoted  life 
can  lie  constantly  open  to  the  influence  of  the  modern 
theatre  with  its  spectacles  and  its  suggestions,  or  to  that 
passion  for  dancing  which  has  possessed  society  for 
almost  a  decade,  without  being  burned  out  in  subtle  but 
effectual  ways  and  left  empty  of  any  real  power  for 
constant  and  blessed  service. 

I  am  not  preaching  an  austere  Puritanism.  I  am 
simply  noting  the  sources  of  spiritual  sterility.  The 
Sahara  desert  is  kinder  to  the  clouds  which  are  driven 
above  its  burning  surface  than  is  our  worldly  and  ex- 
travagant life  to  the  finer  harvests  of  the  soul.  Beyond 
all  this  we  need  new  spiritual  baptisms,  to  be  born 
anew  in  the  sea  of  the  love  and  goodness  of  God,  to 
feed  the  springs  of  the  soul  from  the  wideness  of  the 
Divine.  We  cannot  live  without  God  or  be  rich  in 
any  kind  of  true  wealth  without  His  contribution. 
Prayer  and  worship  and  meditation  upon  the  meaning 
of  life  and  its  appointed  purpose  —  above  all,  much 
dwelling  with  Jesus  and  much  waiting  before  the  Cross 
with  its  disclosure  of  the  method  and  the  cost  of  a 
prevailing  love,  are  absolutely  necessary  for  the  Chris- 
tian and  the  Christian  Church.  Culture  and  clubs 
and  forms  and  the  lesser  things  will  not  answer.  A 
thirsty  land  must  be  fed  from  the  sea,  and  a  thirsty 
soul  must  be  fed  from  God.  The  Church  needs  to  come 
back  to  Christ,  to  be  rebaptized  and  recharged  —  to  be 
rebaptized  with  the  divine  spirit,  to  be  recharged  with 
divine  power. 

Men  with  whom  I  talk  about  such  things  as  this 
usually  say  substantially  the  same  thing  —  a  testimony 
to  the  ideas  of  the  earnest  and  devout  laymen.     "  Give 

147 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

us  things  to  do,"  they  say,  "  and  we  will  do  them. 
The  Church  must  be  saved  by  definite  but  manifold 
activities."  I  cannot  agree  with  them.  Every  one  of 
us  has  more  things  to  do  than  he  is  doing  well.  There 
is  no  lack  of  occasion.  The  world  is  full  of  occasions. 
The  life  of  every  one  of  us  is  a  series  of  points  of 
contact  with  duties  and  challenges  and  opportunities 
which  at  the  best  we  are  not  meeting  as  we  ought  to 
meet  them,  and  which  at  the  worst  we  are  failing  to 
meet  at  all,  and  every  one  of  us  knows  that  this  is  so. 

The  controlling  thing  in  life  is  the  spirit  which  fills 
and  directs  it.  Love  will  never  want  opportunities  for 
loving;  love  will  find  them  all  day  long.  You  say, 
"  Give  me  something  to  love,  and  I  will  show  myself 
loving."  Christ  says,  "  Charge  yourself  with  love,  and 
you  will  find  exercise  for  it  all  the  day  long."  You  say, 
"  Give  me  something  to  be  faithful  to,  and  I  will  prove 
my  fidelity."  Christ  says,  "  Make  fidelity  the  law  of 
life,  and  all  that  you  do  will  be  charged  with  its  holy 
power."  I  do  not  mean  in  all  this  to  deny  the  need  of 
leadership,  of  specific  opportunity,  of  concrete  tasks, 
but  I  do  mean  to  say  that  it  is  not  for  the  want  of  these 
that  the  harvests  of  the  kingdom  are  failing.  It  is  for 
want  of  lives  "  hid  with  Christ  in  God,"  and  so  rich  in 
the  spirit  of  Christ  as  to  charge  everything  which  they 
touch  with  that  spirit  and  to  bring  to  every  relationship 
great  and  holy  qualities  with  which  their  souls  are 
already  overflowing.  That  is  what  this  church  and  every 
church  is  first  of  all  for;  not  to  be  always  telling  you 
things  to  do  or  even  finding  things  for  you  to  do,  but 
to  bring  you  back  to  the  source  of  all  power  and  fulness 
in  Jesus  Christ  and  so  to  secure  for  you  a  life  charged  to 
the  saturation  point  with  the  great  Christian  qualities. 

It  is  idle  to  ask  a  cloud  to  rain  until  there  is  water 

148 


CLOUDS  WITHOUT  WATER 

enough  in  the  stuff  of  it  to  make  rain.  It  is  idle  to  ask 
loyalty,  service  or  sacrifice  of  the  soul  until  loyalty  and 
service  and  sacrifice  are  the  very  texture  of  the  per- 
sonality. You  have  only  to  look  abroad  to  see  how  true 
this  is.  The  men  and  women  who  charge  our  world 
and  bless  it,  who  create  and  carry  the  Church,  have  in 
themselves  a  kind  of  holy  initiative,  a  fulness  of  divine 
strength,  a  fulness  of  love  and  goodness  which  makes 
them  what  they  are,  and  which  is  the  secret  of  their 
power. 

Once  we  have  secured  all  this,  then  of  course  we  need 
opportunity.  A  saturated  cloud  must  come  somehow  or 
somewhere  in  contact  with  the  precipitating  force;  a 
saturated  life  must  express  itself  in  duty  and  in  service. 
The  opportunities  for  all  this  in  a  world  like  ours  begin 
in  the  quiet,  hidden  places  of  our  own  soul  and  reach 
to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  Every  quiet  meditation,  every 
hidden  thought,  every  half-shaped  purpose,  every  affec- 
tion is  an  opportunity  for  the  expression  of  Christian 
qualities.  Why,  when  the  air  is  charged  as  it  may  be 
with  moisture,  every  grass  blade  is  an  opportunity  for 
ministry.  The  very  dewdrops  which  gem  the  grasses  and 
embroider  the  meadows  with  jewels  born  of  the  quiet- 
ness of  the  night  to  shine  for  a  moment  in  the  morning 
light,  are  nothing  more  than  the  contact  of  the  treasures 
of  the  sea  with  the  humble  need  of  the  children  of  the 
meadows  and  roadside. 

Great  and  enduring  relationships  of  life,  home  and 
business,  and  the  state  and  the  church  are  above  all  the 
opportunities  for  the  revelation  of  our  spiritual  wealth. 
The  world  is  thirsty  this  morning  for  what  Christianity 
has  to  give  —  thirsty  for  peace,  for  brotherhood,  for  the 
true  wealth,  for  loving  human  contact,  for  healing  con- 
tentment, for  redemption  and  for  hope.     You  need  not 

149 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

go  beyond  the  four  walls  of  your  own  home  and  the 
four  walls  of  your  own  church  for  the  chances  which 
you  need.  D.  L.  Moody  used  to  say  that  the  world  had 
never  seen  what  God  could  do  with  one  man  who  fol- 
lowed and  yielded  himself  to  the  Divine  will;  the  world 
has  never  seen  what  God  could  do  with  one  church 
following  His  will  and  yielding  itself  unreservedly  to  His 
purpose. 

If  we  were  to  truly  fulfil,  as  we  may  so  easily  fulfil, 
these  two  conditions  of  a  fruitful  life,  saturating  our- 
selves, that  is,  in  love  and  thought  and  purpose  with  the 
Christian  spirit  and  with  whole-hearted  willingness  exer- 
cising this  spirit  in  every  one  of  life's  relationships  and 
opportunities,  our  power  would  know  no  end.  We 
should  not  only  transform  and  spiritualize  what  lies  so 
wholly  within  our  control  —  our  own  lives  and  our  own 
immediate  fellowships,  but  we  should  reach  those  lives 
which  seem  now  so  far  beyond  our  control,  and  con- 
tribute to  social  justice,  human  betterment,  world-wide 
brotherhood  and  the  very  winning  of  the  world  for 
Christ.  Every  single  raindrop  which  falls  minister's  to 
the  whole  earth;  every  devoted  Christian  life  ministers 
to  the  whole  need  of  humanity. 

The  clouds  themselves  are  but  the  creatures  of  forces 
beyond  themselves.  They  have  no  choice  but  to  obey. 
They  are  born  and  they  die  at  the  bidding  of  changing 
seasons,  ebbing  and  flowing  winds  and  all  the  meeting 
of  all  the  powers  which  make  or  unmake  the  pageantry 
of  the  sky.  We  are  not  like  that.  We  have  our  own 
powers  of  resistance  and  initiative.  We  need  not  sur- 
render ourselves  to  the  winds  of  influence  or  tempta- 
tion. We  may  turn  our  own  life  toward  the  way  of  the 
love  of  God.  We  may  seek  our  own  rebaptism  in  His 
love   and   goodness,   devote   ourselves   anew   to   the   ser- 

150 


CLOUDS   WITHOUT  WATER 

vice  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  open  our  souls  to  the 
incoming  of  every  holy  and  blessed  influence.  We  may 
fill  the  vacant  places  in  our  churches,  and  carry  into  the 
world  the  vision  we  have  there  gained.  We  may  bring 
to  all  that  we  are  and  all  that  we  do,  what  God  gives 
us,  steadfast,  brave  and  resolute,  not  excusing  ourselves 
through  the  fault  or  weakness  of  others,  but  sustaining 
ourselves  in  a  God-given  strength.  Then  we  shall  be 
no  longer  "  clouds  without  water  "  but  the  rich  carriers 
of  heavenly  blessings,  the  rising  promise  of  a  diviner 
world. 


XII 
THE  UNNOTED   LOSS   OF  GOD 

"  But  he  knew  not  that  the  Lord  was  departed  from  him" — Judges  16 :20. 

The  Book  of  Judges  is  a  book  of  strange  contradic- 
tions. The  men  and  women  who  move  across  its  pages 
are  seen  as  through  a  mist  —  but  into  the  long  telhng 
and  retelling  of  their  stories  the  Hebrew  historians  have 
woven  an  imperishable  web  of  moral  insight.  Great 
light-bearing  sentences  halt  us,  moral  judgments  which 
sound  the  depths  of  things  interrupt  the  narration, 
revelations  deathlessly  true  of  the  making  and  remaking 
of  character  color  the  recital  of  lawless  passions  and 
unrestrained  treacheries  and  these  ancient  memories  of 
a  cruel  time  have  so  come  by  the  grace  of  God  to  consti- 
tute a  very  treasury  of  spiritual  suggestion  to  which  we 
never  turn  in  vain.  The  story  of  Samson  is  at  the  very 
heart  of  the  book;  our  text  at  the  very  heart  of  his 
story. 

Samson  was  the  son  of  holy  desire,  consecrated  before 
his  birth  by  the  devout  longing  of  parents  who  sought 
him  from  afar  and  received  the  Angel  of  Annunciation 
with  a  prayer  which  we  may  well  make  our  own  as  we 
contemplate  our  responsibility  to  the  unborn:  "Teach 
us  what  we  shall  do  unto  the  child  that  shall  be  born." 
A  passion  so  holy  had  its  high  reward  in  the  gift  of  a 
son  who,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  wrought  true  deliver- 
ances for  a  people  hard  beset.  He  won  great  battles 
with  crude  weapons,  he  was  as  terrible  to  his  enemies 
as  an  army  with  banners.     He  saved  others,  but  him- 

152 


THE  UNNOTED  LOSS   OF  GOD 

self  he  could  not  save.  His  great  strength  was  married 
to  great  weakness  and  in  the  end  his  weakness  triumphed. 
He  slept  in  the  lap  of  seduction,  and  awoke  to  find 
himself  stript  of  his  power.  The  deeper  tragedy  of  his 
awakening  was  that  he  did  not  know  his  power  to  be 
lost.  "  I  will  arise,"  he  said,  "  and  shake  myself  free 
as  at  other  times."  But  there  was  no  answering  re- 
surgence of  strength  and  his  captors  mocked  him  as  he 
stood  helpless  before  them.  "  He  knew  not  that  the 
Lord  was  departed  from  him."  So  simply  as  that  was 
his  downfall  published  to  the  world. 

If  this  ancient  tragedy  of  the  soul  were  without  a 
parallel  we  should  have  no  need  to  dwell  longer  upon  it, 
but  because  it  is  a  revelation  of  moral  deterioration 
universal  in  its  possibilities  it  should  halt  us  all.  Each 
man  has,  to  begin  with,  his  hiding  place  of  power. 
There  is  no  great  strength  without  a  great  secret.  Two 
men  are  always  weak:  the  man  who  has  no  holy  hidden 
place  of  power,  and  the  man  who  bares  his  soul  to  idle 
curiosity,  desecrates  his  shrines,  and  pays  the  debts  of 
his  idle  or  sinful  pleasure  with  all  that  is  deepest  and 
best  within  him.  We  need  to  beware  of  the  man  who 
has  no  sanctities  which  he  guards  as  life  itself.  Samson 
begins  to  play  with  might  and  life  and  honor  when 
he  even  begins  to  lie  about  the  hiding  place  of  his 
strength. 

Directly  a  man  loses  his  reverence  for  the  better  part 
of  his  own  strength,  that  strength  begins  to  desert  him. 
Such  a  reverence  is  as  far  from  conceit  and  jauntiness 
as  the  east  is  from  the  west.  It  is  not  only  consistent 
with  a  noble  humility,  but  demands  a  noble  humility. 
The  very  greatest  men  have  taken  their  greatness  as  a 
kind  of  holy  trust  and  have  safeguarded  it  as  we  safe- 
guard  the   very  Shekinah.      Great   men   have   too   often 

153 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

done  mean  and  unworthy  things,  but  they  have  always, 
as  long  as  they  were  truly  great,  kept  inviolate  and 
apart,  as  men  keep  the  ark  of  God,  some  high  region  of 
vision  and  obedience.  There  has  always  been  a  limit 
beyond  which  they  would  not  pass,  some  one  thing 
they  would  not  do,  some  truth  they  would  not  betray, 
some  heavenly  vision  to  which  they  would  not  be  dis- 
obedient. 

It  is  no  mere  figure  of  speech  to  say  that  the  secret 
hiding  place  of  his  power  is  each  man's  Shekinah.  It 
is  his  Shekinah,  the  place  where  he  meets  God  and 
God  becomes  real  in  his  life.  God  comes  to  us  in  a 
multitude  of  ways,  in  the  laws  of  conduct,  the  conditions 
of  business,  in  righteousness  and  fellowship  and  truth. 
He  comes  to  us  in  the  fertility  of  our  fields,  in  the 
wealth  of  our  mines,  in  the  ministrations  of  the  rains,  in 
the  brooding  warmth  of  summer  suns,  in  winter  silences 
and  solitudes.  He  comes  to  us  in  the  spread  of  laughing 
waters  and  His  power  rises  and  falls  with  the  tides.  He 
is  not  wanting  in  the  principles  of  jurisprudence  or  in 
the  decision  of  courts  or  in  the  arguments  of  lawyers, 
if  so  be  they  seek  His  justice.  He  is  the  patience  of  the 
long-suffering,  the  sympathy  of  those  who  reach  and 
comfort  the  troubled. 

The  great  qualities  in  which  the  men  who  have  re- 
written history  have  prevailed  —  a  dominant  will,  rare 
sagacity  of  judgment,  lonely  courage,  constructive  im- 
agination, an  intuitive  apprehension  of  the  main  currents 
of  popular  opinion  and  the  like,  are  more  than  His  gifts, 
they  are  forms  of  His  indwelling  spirit.  He  is  the  secret 
of  the  healing  power  of  the  physician  and  is  the  com- 
municable quality  of  the  teacher's  instruction.  His  fire 
kindles  the  prophet's  lips  and  sings  in  the  poet's  lyric 
strains.     He  shines  in   the  splendor  of    great    canvases, 

154 


THE  UNNOTED   LOSS   OF   GOD 

speaks  to  us  in  the  serenity  of  the  stars,  spreads  the 
sunset's  floor  of  fretted  gold  and  dwells  in  the  happy- 
promise  of  the  dawn.  He  is  patience  and  insight,  and 
faith  and  strength.  He  is  the  skill  of  the  crafts- 
man, and  the  merchant's  wisdom.  He  is  the  warrior's 
might,  the  stainlessness  of  the  saint  and  the  mystic's 
indwelling  certainty.  To  keep  faith  then  with  truth 
or  power  or  goodness  in  any  fashion  is  to  keep  faith 
with  God. 

The  lawyer  must  keep  faith  with  God  in  his  passion 
for  justice,  in  the  unselfishness  and  veracity  of  the 
coiinsels  which  he  offers  other  men,  in  his  dealing  with 
the  courts,  in  his  framing  and  interpretation  of  laws. 
He  may  not  keep  faith  with  God  in  many  other  regions, 
but  here  at  least  he  must  be  true  if  the  house  of  his 
profession  is  to  stand  when  the  storms  beat  upon  it. 
The  merchant  must  keep  faith  with  God  in  the  quality 
of  his  goods,  in  the  integrity  of  his  enterprises,  in  his 
honor,  his  fairness  and  his  consideration.  The  farmer 
must  keep  faith  with  God  in  every  furrow  he  drives,  in 
the  seed  which  he  sows,  in  the  fidelity  with  which  he 
serves  the  growing  things,  in  the  ingathering  of  his 
harvests,  in  the  marketing  of  his  grains.  The  mason 
must  keep  faith  with  God  as  he  puts  stone  upon  stone. 
The  architect  must  keep  faith  with  God  in  the  balance 
and  proportion  of  his  plans,  in  the  strain  to  which  he 
subjects  iron  and  wood  and  stone.  The  artist  must 
keep  faith  with  God  in  his  lights  and  his  shadows.  The 
weaver  must  keep  faith  with  God  in  his  loom,  as  the 
saint  keeps  faith  with  God  in  his  hours  of  communion. 
If  life  is  to  have  any  power  or  coherence  at  all  there 
must  be  at  least  one  central  point  in  which  we  are 
true  to  truth  and  in  which  something  greater  and  better 
than  we  are  utilizes  us  with  our  full  consent  and  speaks 

155 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

through  us,  we  ourselves  wilHngly  making  Hps  or  lives 
the  vehicle  of  the  divine  relation. 

Of  course  multitudes  of  men  keep  faith  with  God  in 
these  familiar  and  evident  ways  who  do  not  keep  faith 
with  Him  in  higher  and  more  intimate  ways.  The  pity 
of  life  everywhere  and  always  is  that  so  many  of  us  are 
rich  in  God  unconsciously,  but  will  not  follow  on  to 
know  the  fullness  of  conscious  communion  with  Him; 
that  so  many  of  us  avail  ourselves  of  His  lesser  good- 
nesses, but  are  strangely  and  ungratefully  reluctant  to 
let  the  intimate  light  and  peace  of  His  presence  flood  all 
our  souls. 

From  time  to  time  men  come  among  us  who  keep 
faith  with  God  in  the  whole  full  region  of  their  lives. 
They  establish  their  deeds  in  honesty,  their  speech  in 
veracity,  their  souls  in  sanctity.  They  add  devotion  to 
wisdom,  humility  to  power,  goodness  to  strength,  and 
the  love  of  God  to  manifold  activities.  Such  men  as 
these  are  round  about  us  as  the  mountains  are  round 
about  Jerusalem.  Great  qualities  manifest  themselves 
in  their  simplest  moments  and  the  power  of  the  Eternal 
breathes  through  their  daily  tasks.  An  heavenly  wisdom 
expresses  itself  in  every  word  and  action,  they  live  and 
move  and  have  their  being  in  unsuspected  amplitudes  of 
power.  The  Kingdom  of  God  waits  upon  their  service 
and  marching  men  keep  step  to  the  music  which  they 
supply.  They  are  endlessly  rich  in  resources  and  the 
passing  years  do  but  minister  to  their  growth.  No  dark- 
nesses hide  them  and  death  himself  does  but  set  upon 
them  the  mark  of  a  supreme  and  deathless  finality. 
Such  men  are  all  too  rare,  but  they  do  come  to  us  often 
enough  at  least  to  witness  that  of  which  we  are  capable, 
to  reproach  us  for  the  sterile  lethargies  of  our  little  lives 
and  to  prophesy  to  us  the  possibility  of  a  Godlike  man- 

156 


THE  UNNOTED  LOSS   OF  GOD 

hood.  This  is  the  full  secret  of  the  divinely  great:  they 
have  kept  full  faith  with  God,  not  in  little  restricted 
regions,  but  in  the  unmeasured  areas  of  the  possibilities 
of  the  soul. 

Now  just  as  the  secret  of  prevailing  strength  is  keep- 
ing faith  with  God  so  the  true  reason  of  all  waning 
power  is  His  departure.  When  we  cease  to  keep  faith 
with  Him  He  leaves  us.  We  can  keep  no  kind  of  power 
undiminished  save  as  we  are  true  to  the  conditions  of 
its  exercise.  And  the  wonder  and  warning  of  it  all  is 
that  the  great  losses  of  life  are  so  quietly  and  painlessly 
consummated.  The  tides  of  God,  whether  they  ebb  or 
flow,  are  "  too  full  for  sound  or  foam."  Long  ago  it  was 
said  of  the  Messiah  that  He  would  neither  strive  nor 
cry  aloud.  The  greatest  things  in  life  neither  strive 
nor  cry  aloud:  they  stand  as  suppliants  in  the  audience 
chambers  of  our  souls;  they  seek  in  compelling  quiet- 
nesses to  halt  and  arrest  us.  They  search  out  every 
avenue  of  approach  and  feel  like  light  at  the  very  crevi- 
ces by  which  they  may  find  entry  into  life,  but  they  do 
not  strive  or  cry  aloud. 

The  miracle  of  rising  winter  mornings  fills  all  our 
streets  with  such  a  misty  garmenture  of  light-woven 
beauty  as  even  Turner  sought  in  vain  for  the  domes  of 
the  Venice  of  his  dreams,  and,  without  speech  or  lan- 
guage, waits  in  appealing  and  transient  radiancy  for  our 
grateful  and  discerning  vision.  God  spreads  His  sunsets 
abroad  in  all  the  western  sky  for  those  who  are  minded 
to  lift  their  eyes  toward  the  horizons,  but  the  sunset  does 
not  strive  nor  cry  aloud.  So  love  comes  to  us  for 
recognition,  so  truth  dawns,  so  high  fidelities  lie  like 
light  about  us;  a  great  heaven-born  company.  We  have 
only  to  bid  them  welcome  by  so  much  as  a  gesture  and 
they   draw   near;    we   have   only   to   repel    them   by   an 

157 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

inconsiderate  look  and  they  begin  to  darken  or  depart. 
If  we  had  eyes  to  see  we  should  find  ourselves  always 
welcoming  or  dismissing  guests  who  come  and  go,  strangely 
obedient  to  our  attitudes  and  tempers,  our  hospitalities 
or  our  refusals.  God  pity  us  if  we  are  all  the  while  so 
concerned  with  transient  and  unworthy  visitants  that 
we  do  not  discern  the  quiet  withdrawals  of  those  great 
guests.  The  lesser  losses  of  life  are  commonly  more 
sharply  felt  than  the  loss  of  its  deep  and  transforming 
qualities.  An  uncared-for  tooth  protests  sharply  enough, 
but  an  uncared-for  soul  makes  little  complaint.  It  is 
only  when  we  shake  ourselves  free  of  the  petty,  the  en- 
compassing or  the  stained,  and  address  ourselves  to  some 
task  in  which  without  their  comradeship  we  are  fore- 
doomed to  failure,  that  we  discover  that  these  radiant 
guests  of  the  soul   are   gone. 

There  are  many  of  us  here  this  morning  who  at  one 
time  and  with  a  great  expenditure  of  labor  learned  some- 
thing of  another  tongue.  Homer's  grave  music  rebuilt 
for  us  the  walls  of  Troy  ;  under  the  spell  of  Cicero's 
sonorous  periods  we  saw  the  day  die  across  the  templed 
hills  of  Rome.  The  lucidities  of  the  great  French  mas- 
ters were  our  keen  intellectual  joy.  We  felt  our  way 
through  intricate  German  sentences  to  the  greatness  of 
German  thought,  the  vastness  of  German  horizons.  But 
we  did  not  keep  faith  with  possessions  so  precious. 
They  did  not  ask  much;  they  asked  only  a  little  daily 
fidelity,  but  we  would  not  give  it  and  they  in  turn  would 
not  consent  to  be  always  elbowed  back  by  other  inter- 
ests, ungreeted  or  unrecognized.  So  there  came  a  time 
when  we  opened  our  neglected  books  to  find  Greek  but 
a  confusion  of  strange  characters,  and  Latin  a  baffling 
arrangement  of  words,  our  French  unpronounceable,  our 
German  untranslatable. 

158 


THE  UNNOTED  LOSS   OF  GOD 

There  was  a  time  maybe  when  the  poets  spoke  to  us 
face  to  face  as  a  man  speaks  to  his  friend,  or  called  to  us 
from  their  heights  of  mystery  and  charm,  radiant  singers 
of  enduring  realities,  makers  of  music  to  which  we  march. 
But  we  let  the  days  go  by  and  held  no  high  commerce 
with  them,  so  losing  ourselves  in  coarse  and  common 
things  that  the  light  began  to  die  from  the  hills  and  the 
magic  from  the  fields.  And  the  poets  went  their  way; 
a  great  and  jocund  fellowship,  never  intrusive,  asking 
only  to  sing  to  us  for  a  little,  to  bring  a  gleam  into  our 
darknesses  or  consolation  to  our  distresses  or,  leading  us 
from  time  to  time  to  some  hill-top,  to  show  us  how  wide 
the  horizons  really  are  and  what  lights  are  resident  in 
noonday  amplitudes  —  but  because  we  would  not  keep 
faith  with  them  we  lost  them.  Not  long  ago  I  rode  one 
June  morning  through  the  meadows  of  the  Vermont  up- 
lands with  a  friend.  Something  of  the  light  and  wonder 
of  the  day  stirred  memories  long  unexercised.  "  He  won- 
dered," he  said,  "what  had  become  of  the  bobolinks; 
there  had  been  many  of  them  in  just  such  meadows 
when  he  was  a  boy."  And  even  as  he  spoke  the  air 
was  aquiver  with  the  ecstasy  of  their  songs.  The  world 
was  full  of  bobolinks,  and  every  bobolink  a  lyric  voice, 
but  he  had  lost  the  ear  which  heard  and  the  eye  which 
saw,  and  he  rode  through  the  music  of  leafy  June  won- 
dering at  its  silences. 

And  so  on  to  the  end.  Powers  unemployed  are  lost, 
capacities  unused  weaken  into  decay.  Ideals  unfollowed 
fade  into  the  light  of  common  day,  presences  unwelcomed 
turn  from  our  doors,  conditions  unfulfilled  cost  us  some 
great  price  of  loss  or  degeneracy.  Laws  unobeyed  have 
their  ways  of  automatic  reprisal,  unworthy  indulgences 
weaken  the  foundations  of  character,  disloyalties  eat  the 
fiber  out  of  our  souls.     And   so   between   our  disregard 

159 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

of  the  best,  our  self-immersion  in  the  commonplace,  or 
our  self-indulgence  in  the  stained  and  unworthy,  all  the 
inner  part  of  life  is  consumed,  only  the  outer  show  of 
it  remains,  and  when  the  great  day  of  testing  comes  God 
is  gone,  our  strength  is  illusion  and  our  brave  outer 
seeming  but  the  mask  of  dust  and  death  within. 

It  is  in  such  ways  as  these  that  we  lose  our  sense  of 
the  divine,  and  then  wonder  why  the  world  is  so  want- 
ing in  any  revelation  of  God.  Men  tell  me  again  and 
again  of  this  or  that  reason  why  they  do  not  go  to 
church  and  why  religion  has  ceased  to  have  for  them 
any  discernible  meaning.  They  are  fertile  in  excuses 
and  put  the  blame  everywhere  except  where  it  should 
be  put.  They  either  will  not  see  or  will  not  confess,  or, 
more  unhappily  still,  cannot  see,  that  they  have  so  given 
themselves  to  the  cares  of  this  world  and  have  been  so 
concerned  about  unworthy  things  or  worse,  that  religion 
has  lost  its  meaning  for  them  and  God  is  gone.  Wor- 
ship has  ceased  to  be  an  exercise  of  their  souls;  prayer 
is  no  longer  the  mother  tongue  of  their  spirits.  Nothing 
within  them  rises  up  to  bless  the  name  of  God,  nothing 
within  them  offers  any  response  to  the  age-old  voices  of 
devotion  and  adoration.  Chanting  choirs  may  fill  the 
spaces  of  churches  with  the  Te  Deum  or  waken  sleeping 
adorations  with  the  Thrice  Holy,  but  they  themselves  are 
dumb,  unresponsive.  And  the  pity  of  it  all  is  that  they 
did  not  feel  and  have  never  felt  the  pain  of  it.  God 
did  not  cry  aloud;  He  simply  left  them  because  they 
would  not  give  Him  room,  nor  fulfill  the  first  tender  and 
gracious  conditions  of  His  indwelling.  And  though  in 
His  loss  they  have  been  visited  with  the  master  penalties 
of  spiritual  decay,  that  decay  itself  had  been  so  quiet, 
even  so  comfortable,  that  it  was  as  if  God  left  them 
while  they  slept.     It  is  only  when  the  call  comes  for  the 

160 


THE  UNNOTED  LOSS   OF  GOD 

full  exercise  of  wonted  power  that  we  discover  the  great- 
ness of  our  loss. 

It  is  one  of  the  well-established  traditions  of  history 
that  Abelard,  brought  face  to  face  with  St.  Bernard  at 
the  Council  of  Sens,  found  all  his  skill  in  argument,  his 
great  power  of  luminous  statement  and  his  dominion 
over  the  minds  of  men  utterly  wanting.  He  could  make 
no  reply  to  the  man  whose  presence  was  a  flame  of  accu- 
sation and  he  appealed  in  confusion  to  Rome.  Whether 
or  no  tradition  has  dealt  fairly  with  Abelard  in  this  great 
crisis  of  his  life  is  an  open  question,  but  that  Abelard 
failed  in  the  high  promise  of  his  early  maturity,  and  that 
in  spite  of  his  rare  gifts  his  life  work  issued  in  confusion 
and  failure  is  no  debatable  question.  He  was  not  true 
to  truth  and  loyalty;  as  he  betrayed  them  they  left  him 
bitter  regrets  and  the  haunting  sense  of  merited  failure. 
And  Abelard  is  but  one  of  many,  nor  do  we  need  to  turn 
the  dusty  pages  of  a  far-off  past  for  illustrations.  A 
great  preacher  has  contended  that  the  early  promise  of 
Millais'  life  was  never  fulfilled  and  that  in  marrying  the 
divorced  wife  of  John  Ruskin  his  truer  inspiration  was 
lost.  He  still  kept  his  marvelous  technique,  but  never 
after  could  he  put  such  a  look  on  the  face  of  man  or 
woman  as  that  tenderness  of  brave  renunciation  which 
glorifies  the  Eve  of  St.  Bartholomew.  How  can  a  man 
paint  renunciation  who  does  not  know  how  to  renounce? 
Daniel  Webster  surrendered  convictions  mighty  as  the 
granite  of  his  home  country  for  an  honor  which  he  never 
won,  and  died  of  an  inward  wound,  fallen  from  his  high 
estate.  Even  as  this  is  being  written  a  railroad  presi- 
dent, who  forfeited  one  of  the  master  industrial  oppor- 
tunities of  his  generation  in  obedience  to  forces  whose 
tangled  web  he  cannot  himself  unravel,  Is  pursued  by 
courts  and  popular  opinion,  asking  only  that  he  may  be 

161 


r  4  THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

i  i  ^ 

i  forgotten.     And  these,  taken  almost  at  random,  are  only 

S^      three  of  a  vast  and  tragic  fellowship. 

Again  and  again  we  see  men  fail  in  some  high  moment 

when   their  own   destiny  or  the  destiny  of  their   fellows 

waits  upon  the  manifestation  of  their  power.     They  fall 

jj"        as  a  tree  falls  when  all  the  heart  of  it  has  been  eaten  out 

s/  by  decay  and  the  winds  smite  it  in  their  wrath.  If  the 
causes  of  their  failure  be  traced  to  their  hidden  sources 
they  will  be  found  always  in  some  fatal  disobedience  to 
the   heavenly  vision. 

Whether  the  divine  light  dies  first  from  the  valleys  of 
friendly  human  intercourse  and  the  low  hills  of  duty,  or 
from  the  heights  of  aspiration  and  spiritual  communion, 
does  not  in  the  outcome  greatly  matter.  When  we  have 
been  untrue  to  the  best  we  know,  have  yielded  to  the 
solicitations  of  sins  and  sought  our  own  comfort  and  our 
own  security,  our  moral  and  spiritual  deterioration  begins. 
And  from  such  deterioration  is  born  a  weakness  which 
either  frets  life  away  by  processes  of  slow  decay  or  in- 
volves it  in  some  tragedy  of  hopeless,  smiting  disaster. 
If  God  is  gained  by  insight,  obedience,  communion.  He 
is  lost  through  blindness,  disobedience  and  moral  and 
spiritual  selfishness. 

God  pity  us  all  who  hear  in  any  morning  of  retribu- 
tion the  old,  old  cry  —  "The  Philistines  are  upon  thee" 
—  to  find  our  power  gone  and  to  look  into  the  mocking 
faces  of  our  captors. 

The  story  of  Samson  does  not  end,  however,  with  his 
captivity.  His  eyes  were  put  out,  but  the  eye  of  the  soul 
became  thereby  more  clear  and  penetrating.  He  saw 
more  in  his  blindness  than  he  had  ever  seen  with  open 
eyes.  He  was  made  the  sport  of  his  captors  and  set 
to  degrading  tasks,  but  even  as  his  weary  feet  wore  so 
deep  a  path  about  the  mill  to  which  he  was  harnessed 

162 


THE  UNNOTED  LOSS   OF   GOD 

that  he  could  follow  it  in  his  unchanging  darkness,  he 
rediscovered  God  and  in  the  discovery  found  himself 
anew.  We  may  well  be  sure  that  something  more  hap- 
pened in  that  bitter  time  than  that  his  hair  grew  long 
again.  He  was  burned  clean  by  the  fires  of  repentance; 
he  was  taught  humility  and  dependence;  he  was  purged 
of  self,  he  drove  back  to  their  proper  places  the  pride 
and  the  passion  which  had  overthrown  him.  He  took 
hold  of  God  anew  and  though  he  died,  he  overthrew  in 
his  death  those  who  had  mocked  him,  and  involved  him- 
self and  his  foes  in  one  common  ruin. 

No  need  to  say  that  this  was  at  the  best  a  tragic  re- 
generation. No  man  loses  God  without  thereafter  finding 
in  his  scars  a  testimony  which  will  not  be  dismissed  to 
the  cost  of  the  blindness  and  the  self-indulgence  which 
led  him  astray.  And  yet  on  the  other  hand  those  who 
have  passed  through  such  experiences  as  these  and  have 
come  at  last  to  a  new  light  are  not  likely  to  lose  it,  and 
they  have  beside  such  a  sense  of  moral  and  spiritual 
reality  as  has  made  them  again  and  again  the  prophets, 
the  teachers,  the  leaders  of  us  all,  so  greatly  competent 
to  warn  us  because  they  have  suffered  so  much,  so  bless- 
edly competent  to  hearten  us  because  they  have  found 
anew  the  sources  of  their  peace  and  power. 

We  may  well  then  in  some  quiet  time  of  self-estimate 
and  introspection  take  account  of  what  presences  fill  the 
roads  which  lead  to  the  audience  rooms  of  our  souls  or 
stand  in  the  ante-chambers  of  our  loyal  regard.  Are 
they  arriving  or  departing?  Do  they  come  in  light  or 
leave  in  darkness?  Do  they  come  with  gifts  of  ampler 
power  or  do  they  bear  away  with  them  that  strength 
which  was  our  birthright?  Pray  God  that  those  whom 
we  dismiss  are  only  such  sorrow-bringing  guests  as  self- 
indulgence,   faithlessness    to    duty,   distrust   of    God    and 

163 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

unworthy  conceptions  of  life,  while  those  who  seek  us 
out,  sure  of  high  welcome,  are  the  very  ambassadors  of 
the  Most  High,  manifestations  of  the  presence  of  God, 
coming  to  abide  with  us,  the  blessed  and  power-giving 
guests  of   the  soul. 


164 


XIII 
DOERS  OF  THE  WORD 

"  But  be  ye  doers  of  the  Word,  and  not  hearers  only,  deceiving  your  own 
selves" — James  1 :  22. 

If  we  were  not  so  familiar  with  words,  we  should  be 
strangely  moved  by  their  haunting  wonder.  We  breathe, 
ever  so  gently,  across  the  almost  divine  mechanism  of  our 
vocal  cords;  we  ask  the  assistance  of  lips  and  tongue 
and  lo,  thought  becomes  vibrant,  and  truth  has  found 
a  body.  Think,  I  beseech  you,  upon  a  wordless  world — 
how  its  silences  would  first  haunt  and  then  numb,  and 
then  slay  us.  The  greatest  things  which  men  may  think 
or  hope  or  dream  or  worship  or  hunger  for,  come  to  us 
first   in   the   guise  of  words. 

There  was  never  a  sword  tempered  which  has  so  keen 
an  edge  as  a  spoken  word;  there  is  no  balm  in  Gilead 
like  the  consolations  of  love  and  pity  made  articulate. 
Words  commend  and  woo;  they  quiet  our  perturbed 
spirits,  they  kindle  and  inspire  us,  they  bridge  the  gulf 
between  soul  and  soul.  They  fling  a  hundred  thousand 
men  against  a  fortress:  they  send  the  lonely  out  to  die 
in  some  far  country;  they  have  power  to  call  us  back 
from  the  edge  of  the  grave  itself.  We  need  a  new  re- 
spect for  words:  they  are  not  mere  breath,  or  passing 
sound  —  they  are  life  and  truth  and  love  and  thought 
and  God.     "  Man's  word  is  God  in  man." 

But  we  must  not  let  the  magic  of  words  themselves 
blind  us  to  their  place  in  life.  A  word  can  never  be  an 
end  in  itself.    It  is  an  instrument  of  the  soul  —  the  vehicle 

165 


THE   GODWARD    SIDE   OF   LIFE 

of  truth.  A  word  which  has  no  reaht}-  in  it  is  a  he.  The 
subtlest  temptation  which  we  all  face  who  deal  with 
words  is  to  make  much  of  them  for  their  own  sakes, —  to 
become  their  servants,  not  their  masters.  Jesus  said  that 
our  idle  words  will  come  up  to  plague  us  at  the  Day  of 
Judgment.  There  were  men  a  little  later  than  the  time 
of  the  text  who  went  all  about  the  Roman  Empire  mak- 
ing a  show  of  words.  They  made  long  speeches  about 
nothing,  they  lashed  themselves  into  a  spurious  fury 
over  imaginary  wrongs  while  their  world  was  red  with 
blood  and  hot  with  evil  desire;  they  debated  impossible 
questions  while  great  matters  of  life  and  death  challenged 
them  in  the  streets  of  every  city.  They  were  Rhetori- 
cians —  they  lived  on  words  which  had  no  relation  to  life. 
A  word  is  more  than  idle  if  it  be  not  rooted  in  reality. 
A  word  is  more  than  idle  if  it  does  not  fulfil  itself  in 
deeds  — words  are  meant  to  be  done.  True,  the  con- 
nection between  the  word  and  the  deed  is  not  always 
overly  plain.  Words  may  ask  an  immediate  and  vivid 
response  or  they  may  lose  themselves  in  the  depths  of  the 
meditative  soul,  there  to  do  their  quiet  and  transforming 
work,  and  only  after  long  gestation  to  issue  in  any  overt 
act.  Here,  above  all,  is  what  misleads  us.  We  are  sure 
enough  of  those  connections  between  word  and  act  which 
lie  upon  the  surface  of  our  lives;  we  do  not  always 
understand  those  transmutations  of  word  into  character 
and  action  which  lie  in  the  deeps  of  our  lives.  A  word, 
to  move  and  remake  us,  does  not  need  to  be  a  com- 
mand; it  may  be  the  lyric  soliloquy  of  the  poet,  the 
philosopher's  massive  interpretation  of  life,  the  proph- 
et's flaming  utterance,  a  lover's  wooing,  or  a  mother's 
benediction;  but  soon  or  late  every  word  becomes  a 
deed.  If  it  ought  not  to  become  a  deed  —  it  ought  not 
to  be  spoken.     If  it  never  becomes  a  deed  it  dies  with 

166 


DOERS   OF  THE  WORD 

the  breath  which  made  it.  Now  there  are  two  ways  in 
which  we  violate  this  indissoluble  unity  between  words 
and  deeds.  We  may  do  without  hearing  —  we  may  hear 
without  doing. 

This  world  of  ours  is  all  too  full  of  men  and  women 
busy  about  many  things  whose  active  life  is  strangely 
wanting  in  vision  and  inspiration;  they  do  without 
hearing.  I  think  of  the  great  army  of  workers  who  have 
never  been  taught  the  true  meaning  of  their  work.  They 
never  had  a  chance.  The  poets  never  sang  to  them,  the 
prophets  never  called  to  them  across  the  hills  of  sunrise. 
They  have  no  horizon,  no  inspirations.  They  work  like 
dumb  brutes  in  the  darkness  of  the  mines  —  that  you 
and  I  may  dwell  in  light.  They  dig  sewers  —  that  our 
cities  may  be  drained,  and  our  houses  be  sweet  and 
clean.  They  weave  the  cloth  which  clothes  us,  and 
only  the  clattering  looms  have  ever  told  them  what  they 
do.  Last  week  I  watched  the  workmen  building  the 
street  on  College  Hill:  swarthy  aliens  breaking  up  the 
roadbed,  pounding  boulders,  spreading  crushed  stone, 
sweating  and  straining.  But  yesterday  men  whose 
names  were  household  words  across  the  continent,  lovers 
of  truth,  soldiers  of  the  ideal,  comrades  of  the  wise  and 
great  of  all  time,  marched  in  their  multi-colored  gar- 
ments, every  color  telling  its  own  story,  to  brave  music, 
down  the  street  which  other  men  had  builded,  under  the 
laurel  other  men  had  spread.^  I  wonder  if  they  who 
toiled  there  knew  that  they  were  roadbuilders  for  the 
sons  and  daughters  of  the  Spirit.  I  wonder  if  we,  as  we 
passed  up  and  down  the  hill,  were  grateful  as  we  should 
have  been,  to  our  unnoted  comrades,  in  whose  sweat  and 
weariness  our  way  was  made  easy. 

1  This  is  a  reference  to  the  academic  procession  of  Brown  University  on  the 
occasion  of  Iier  Sesqui-centennial. 

167 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

Here  before  our  eyes  is  the  very  pathos  of  Ufe.  The 
world  will  always  have  need  of  men  who  dig  ditches  and 
lay  pavements:  must  they  always  work  in  darkness? 
It  is  not  hard  work  that  hurts;  it  is  work  without  in- 
sight. Surely  the  laurel  of  life  is  as  truly  for  those  who 
build  the  roads  as  for  the  wise  and  great  who  walk 
thereon.  Who  will  tell  them  so?  Where  is  the  prophet 
who  will  take  the  root  of  bitterness  out  of  the  life  of  the 
toiler,  not  by  the  easing  of  his  toil,  but  by  the  trans- 
figuration of  his  task?  God  speed  him!  Our  weary 
world  looks  up  with  dumb,  appealing  eyes  searching 
his  coming.  It  is  only  by  the  inspiration  of  some 
living  word  that  any  of  us  may  be  released  from  the 
only  weariness  which  makes  man  a  brother  to  the 
brute  —  the  dumb  weariness  of  an  unillumined  spirit.  I 
say  the  world  is  all  too  full  of  those  who  do,  without 
hearing.  Sometimes  they  never  had  a  chance;  no  one 
has  ever  taught  them.  Sometimes  they  will  not  hear; 
they  scorn  the  sources  of  inspiration;  they  are  blind  to 
the  kindling  power  of  truth.  They  are  not  always  ditch- 
diggers  and  roadbuilders;  they  are  too  often  merchants 
and  manufacturers  and  politicians  and  even  preachers; 
but  if  so  be  they  have  never  heard  or  have  refused  to 
hear  the  living  message  which  defines  all  well-being  in 
terms  of  love  and  truth  and  service,  their  work  is  but  a 
dull,  mechanic  exercise,  fertile  in  discontent,  pregnant 
in  rebellion,  and  strangely  evanescent  and  sterile. 

Over  against  these  are  the  men  and  women  who  are 
hearers  of  the  Word,  but  not  doers,  —  no  strangers  they 
to  inspiring  counsel.  They  fairly  bathe  themselves  in  it. 
They  love  to  be  played  upon  by  high  emotions;  they 
count  themselves  the  elect  because  they  have  listened  to 
the  prophets.  And  yet  their  lives  also  are  strangely 
sterile  —  aye,  worse  than  sterile.     If  those  who  do,  with- 

168 


DOERS   OF  THE  WORD 

out  hearing,  are  most  to  be  pitied,  if  so  be  they  have 
never  had  a  chance,  those  who  hear  without  doing  are 
most  strongly  to  be  blamed.  They  are  transgressing 
one  of  the  first  great  laws  of  life.  James  the  apostle 
has  James  the  psychologist  for  his  best  commentator. 
If  there  is  one  teaching  about  which  all  students  of  per- 
sonality are  agreed,  it  is  this  —  that  action  is  the  end  of 
life.  I  use  "action"  broadly;  it  includes  uncounted 
things.  The  realm  of  action  is  bounded  on  the  one  side 
by  the  soldier's  fierce  and  immediate  obedience;  on  the 
other  side  by  fruitful  tempers,  brave  and  constant  atti- 
tudes of  life,  and  it  includes  all  that  lies  between.  But 
whatsoever  comes  to  us  must  in  the  end  express  itself 
or  else  it  has  come  to  us  in  vain.  It  makes  no  difference 
whether  the  word  is  the  most  clear-cut  demand  for  action 
which  ever  fell  from  human  lips,  or  the  moving  melody 
of  a  Beethoven  symphony  —  it  is  still  meant  to  express 
itself  in  action,  and  if  it  does  not  so  express  itself,  it  is 
worse  than  idle;    it  is  a  poison  to  the  soul. 

There  is  nothing  which  so  numbs  the  very  springs  of 
action  as  disobedience  in  the  face  of  high  imperatives  or 
the  want  of  adequate  response  to  anything  which  deeply 
moves  us.  The  most  perilous  state  of  the  soul  is  to  live 
in  regions  of  emotion  which  have  no  meaning  at  all  save 
as  they  express  themselves  in  deeds  and  obedience,  and 
never  either  to  do  or  to  obey;  or  to  listen  to  great  words 
which  we  never  seriously  dream  of  translating  into  action; 
or  to  look  with  disobedient  eyes  into  the  face  of  truth. 
Tauler,  the  mystic,  speaking  with  the  mystic's  marvel- 
ous insight  into  the  soul  states,  says  of  those  who  de- 
light in  high  and  holy  emotions,  and  bring  forth  no 
fruit  of  righteousness,  "  that  it  shall  be  counted  unto 
them  as  spiritual  unchastity."  That  is  death  in  life, 
and  such  a  death  as  we  need  most  profoundly  to  fear, 

169 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

for  It  is  death  which  comes  to  us  in  the  guise  of  spiritual 
gain,  masking  himself  under  the  forms  of  goodness,  pain- 
less in  his  approach,  and  hiding  what  we  ought  to  dread. 
Nothing  is  sadder  in  this  world  of  ours  than  any  true 
word  which  returns  unto  him  who  spake  it,  void.  Oh, 
the  pity  of  that!  on  the  one  side  the  teacher  who  might 
transform  a  life;  on  the  other,  the  unheeding  scholar. 
On  the  one  side  the  prophet  whose  flaming  word  might 
re-write  the  history  of  a  nation;  on  the  other  side  those 
who  go  by  uncaring.  "Is  it  nothing  to  ye  who  pass 
by?"  On  the  one  side  Jesus  Christ,  pouring  out  the 
fulness  of  his  redemptive  power,  in  one  heart-broken  cry 
which  vibrates  still  across  the  spaces  of  the  sundering 
years,  "  How  often  would  I  have  gathered  you  —  and  ye 
would  not."  On  the  other  side,  the  unheeding  city,  so 
soon  to  be  left  desolate. 

Ah,  beloved,  we  are  face  to  face  at  last  with  the  secret 
of  so  much  of  our  powerlessness.  The  sad  dispropor- 
tion between  the  moving  sublimity  of  the  words  of  hope 
and  duty,  radiant  with  human  possibility,  with  which  we 
are  all  too  familiar,  and  the  shadowed  actualities  of  our 
world  and  our  lives  is  just  here  —  we  are  hearers  of  the 
Word  —  and  not  doers.  And  thus,  says  the  apostle,  we 
deceive  ourselves.  We  think  that  in  merely  hearing  we 
have  done  enough.  "  I  have  gone  to  church  this  morn- 
ing," we  tell  ourselves;  "that  is  more  than  my  neighbor 
has  done.  Ought  it  not  to  be  accounted  to  me  for 
righteousness?  I  am  always  willing  to  sign  any  petition 
for  civic  betterment.  I  went  to  college  —  I  even  wear 
a  Phi  Beta  Kappa  key.  I  am  serving  on  any  number  of 
committees;  you  will  always  find  my  name  among  those 
'  present.'  " 

And  so  we  make  a  catalog  of  our  intellectual  and  spir- 
itual hospitalities  and  actually  think  that  we  are  doing 

170 


DOERS   OF  THE  WORD 

all  that  could  reasonably  be  expected  of  anybody  when 
we  have  merely  been  having  other  people  tell  us  what 
we  ought  to  do.  No,  we  must  go  further  than  that,  or 
we  would  better  never  have  begun.  "Be  ye  doers  of  the 
Word,"  says  the  apostle,  "  and  not  hearers  only."  Di- 
rectly we  begin  to  try  to  do,  the  whole  atmosphere  of 
life  changes,  and  the  breath  of  reality  —  like  a  northwest 
wind  —  clears  up  the  befogged  horizons  of  our  souls. 
Directly  we  begin  to  do,  we  come  down  from  the  seat  of 
the  scornful.  Cynicism  is  the  daughter  of  inaction,  but 
faith  and  hope  are  the  children  of  obedience.  Directly 
we  begin  to  do,  we  cease  to  be  critics,  -^here  is  a  vast 
deal  of  criticism  which  only  puts  sand  into  the  gears  of 
life,  and  nine-tenths  of  it  is  indulged  in  by  people  who 
will  not  share  the  tasks  of  those  whom  they  criticise.  '  It 
is  easy  to  stand  far,  far  from  the  firing  line  and  blame 
the  soldier;  once  we  begin  to  fight  at  his  side,  and  we 
cover  him  with  the  mantle  of  our  charity.  The  men  and 
women  who  are  doing  most  in  this  world  are  most  toler- 
ant of  others;  readiest  with  their  sympathy;  most 
abounding  in  their  love. 

Throw  yourself  into  the  fight  for  a  better  city,  and 
you  will  not  be  so  impatient  of  the  shortcomings  of 
those  who  are  doing  the  best  they  can.  Throw  your 
whole  soul  into  the  well-being  of  your  church  and  you 
will  forget  how  to  find  fault  with  its  members  or  its 
minister.  Stand  in  the  trench  with  the  soldier  —  you 
will  understand  why  he  has  not  already  won  the  battle. 

There  is  nothing  like  doing  to  clear  away  doubt.  The 
great  confidences  of  the  life  of  the  Spirit  are  like  the  glow- 
ing windows  of  this  church  —  they  were  never  meant  to 
be  seen  from  the  outside.  As  long  as  you  stand  outside 
the  colors  are  dull,  the  figures  are  blurred,  the  meanings 
are  hidden;    but  once  you  come  inside  then  every  beam 

171 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

of  the  light  of  God  brings  out  a  still  more  splendid  color 
and  discloses  hidden  depths  of  glory.  Prayer  is  the  most 
impossible  exercise  of  the  soul  until  you  begin  to  pray; 
then  it  is  the  native  speech  of  every  needy  spirit.  The 
cross  is  a  delusion  lifted  by  devotion  against  the  horizons 
of  time,  until  you  cast  yourself  upon  the  love  of  a  suffer- 
ing God,  and  then  it  is  the  Rock  of  Ages.  The  teach- 
ings of  Jesus  Christ  are  the  almost  impossible  exhorta- 
tions of  a  Galilean  peasant  until  you  begin  to  make 
them  real,  and  then  they  are  the  bed-rock  of  civiliza- 
tion ;  —  the  shaping  forces  of  character,  the  guarantee 
of  peace  and  justice,  the  luminous  law  of  the  Eternal, 
the  living  Word  of  God. 

Immortality  is  the  misleading  dream  of  the  children  of 
fate  and  time  until  you  seek  the  comradeship  of  the 
Eternal,  then  it  becomes  the  one  flaming  certainty  which 
no  cloud  can  obscure,  or  no  wreck  of  any  constellation 
blot  out  of  your  sky. 

Doing  brings  peace  and  joy.  Brave  action  and  corrod- 
ing unhappiness  cannot  walk  the  same  road.  Action  — 
I  use  it  broadly  still  —  will  untie  the  most  tangled  knot 
of  life.  Nothing  is  impossible  when  the  day  is  fully 
come  and  we  have  risen  to  our  tasks;  but  the  darkest 
hours  in  any  life  are  those  hours  before  the  dawn  when 
we  lie  and  brood  and  fear,  and  the  pallid  light  of  our 
chambers  is  populous  with  spectres.  God  be  praised 
for  the  brave,  clear,  light  of  any  morning  of  daring  and 
obedience  which  calls  us  away  from  our  fear-haunted 
shadows  into  the  glowing  comradeships  of  love  and  duty. 

Action  vitalizes  truth.  The  greatest  thing  in  our 
world  of  human  wonder  is  the  power  of  men  to  become 
soldiers  of  the  living  Word,  and  march  out  incarnate 
armies  of  the  prophets,  the  dreamers,  the  idealists,  — 
aye,  of  the  Son  of  God. 

172 


DOERS  OF  THE  WORD 

There  is  no  deed  which  was  not  first  a  living  word. 
Sometimes  words  go  marching  out  as  armies;  sometimes 
they  cross  the  sea,  bearing  the  seeds  of  a  new  civiHza- 
tion;  sometimes  they  build  cities;  and  always  they  build 
lives.  Sometimes  they  are  emblazoned  banners  and 
sometimes  they  are  tempered  steel;  sometimes  they  are 
the  policies  of  nations  and  sometimes  they  are  the  towers 
of  time-worn  cathedrals,  seen  far  against  the  sky. 

We  are  this  morning,  every  one  of  us,  in  what  is  best 
and  bravest  in  our  own  lives,  living  words.  We  are  the 
words  of  mothers  and  teachers,  lovers  and  saints,  scholars, 
statesmen  or  dreamers;  our  deeds  are  the  children  of 
those  who  have  spoken  to  us  —  forgotten  words  are  re- 
born in  what  we  do;  the  words  of  the  dead  live  again 
in  our  lives. 

We  always  possess  what  we  have  done;  no  one  can 
take  it  away  from  us.  What  I  have  learned  I  may  for- 
get; but  what  I  have  done  I  do  not  need  even  to  try 
to  remember.  It  is  mine  —  because  it  is  me.  So  we  are 
introducing  more  and  more  the  laboratory  method  into 
education;  we  want  our  children  to  do  the  things  they 
are  taught;  once  done,  they  lie  no  longer  upon  the  sur- 
face of  their  lives,  to  be  blown  away  by  any  passing 
wind  or  erased  by  the  touch  of  time.  Once  done,  they 
are  wrought  into  the  very  structure  of  their  selfhood,  and 
when  occasion  arises  they  will  do  them  again;  not  by 
any  trick  of  memory  but  by  the  sure  magic  of  creative 
force. 

Doing  reveals  us  to  ourselves.  We  never  truly  know 
what  we  are  until  we  bring  ourselves  into  action.  Here 
is  the  clear  meaning  of  the  apostle's  figure  —  a  figure 
which  I  have  read  a  hundred  times  and  did  not  under- 
stand till  yesterday.  "  For  if  any  be  a  hearer  of  the 
Word,"  he  says,  "  and  not  a  doer  of  the  Word,  he  is  like 

173 


THE  GODWARD    SIDE   OF  LIFE 

unto  a  man  beholding  his  natural  face  in  the  glass ;  for  he 
beholdeth  himself  and  goeth  his  way,  and  straightway 
forgetteth  what  manner  of  man  he  was." 

What,  after  all,  have  our  mirrors  to  tell  us  about  our- 
selves save  the  fleeting  and  the  superficial?  The  self 
which  we  see  in  the  mirror  is  not  the  self  which  we 
really  know.  The  shadowy  reflection  has  nothing  to  tell 
us  of  laughter  and  tears,  of  love  and  yearning,  of  wonder 
and  pity.  Have  you  never  seen  yourself  for  an  instant 
as  you  go  down  the  street  —  yourself  reflected  in  some 
shop  window  mirror,  lost  as  soon  as  seen  —  and  have 
you  never  been  moved  by  a  sense  of  strange  wonder,  as 
if  the  one  whom  you  saw  was  unknown  to  you  as  the 
stranger  by  your  side?  No;  the  mirror  reflects  nothing 
but  life's  fleeting  externalities.  It  is  not  by  looking  at 
ourselves  in  the  glass  that  we  know  our  weaknesses,  or 
sound  the  possible  depths  of  our  strength;  but  rather  as 
we  essay  great  tasks  and  face  flaming  opportunities,  and 
bear  heavy  burdens,  and  live  and  love  and  suffer  and 
rejoice. 

It  is  by  such  stairs  as  these  that  we  reach  the  great 
spiritual  realities.  It  is  by  the  want  of  action,  noble 
and  fruitful,  that  we  pass  through  self-deceit  and  numb- 
ing powerlessness  and  sterile  detachment  from  actuality 
down  into  those  empty  futilities  of  life  in  which  character 
is  dissolved  and  our  very  souls  fall  apart  like  a  garment 
fretted  by  moths.  And  I  wonder  if  the  judgment  day 
has  any  more  pitiless  revelation  than  this  uncovering  of  a 
life  without  texture  or  power  whose  deepening  detach- 
ments from  the  actual  have  detached  it  from  God  Him- 
self —  a  life  for  which  heaven  has  no  place  and  the 
nether  darkness  no  hospitality.  It  will  be  better  in  that 
day  to  have  been  Kipling's  "  Gentlemen  Adventurers  " ; 
"  fettered  wrist  to  bar  all  for  red  iniquity,"   for  in  the 

174 


DOERS  OF  THE  WORD 

very  positiveness  of  their  fault  there  is  a  strangely 
shadowed  hope,  than  to  bring  to  God's  judgment  bar 
the  dusty  emptiness  of  a  soul  which  never  did  the  good 
it  might  have  done  —  or  sinned  the  sins  of  which  it 
darkly  dreamed. 

"  And  Tomlinson  took  up  his  tale  and  spoke  of  his  good  in  life, 
This  I  have  read  in  a  book,  he  said,  and  that  was  told  to  me. 
And  this  I  have  thought  that  another  man  thought  of  a  Prince  in  Muscovy. 

The  good  souls  flocked  like  homing  doves  and  bade  him  clear  the  path, 

And  Peter  twirled  the  jangling  keys  in  weariness  and  wrath. 

'  Ye  have  read,  ye  have  heard,  ye  have  thought,'  he  said,  '  and  the  tale  is 

yet  to  run; 
By  the  worth  of  the  body  that  once  ye  had,  give  answer — what  ha'  ye 
done? ' 

*  Ye  have  read,  ye  have  felt,  ye  have  guessed,  good  lack!    Ye  have  ham- 
pered Heaven's  Gate; 
There's  little  room  between  the  stars  in  idleness  to  prate. 
O  none  may  reach  by  hired  speech  of  neighbor,  priest  and  kin. 
Through  borrowed  deed  to  God's  good  meed  that  lies  so  fair  within.'  " 

Well,  there  is  need  everywhere  that  we  should  be  doers 
of  the  Word  and  not  hearers  only,  but  there  is  supreme 
need  of  it  in  the  Church.  For  too  many  of  us  religion, 
and  all  that  it  stands  for,  lies  far  too  much  in  that 
region  of  the  soul  where  obedience  is  too  often  doubtful 
or  uncertain,  and  sometimes  sadly  wanting.  The  very 
greatness  of  the  theme  with  which  we  deal  makes  obedi- 
ence difficult;  we  are  not  dealing  with  questions  of 
profit  and  loss,  but  with  eternal  values;  not  with  the 
concerns  of  a  day,  but  with  the  enduring  interests  of  a 
lifetime.  It  is  not  easy  to  be  doers  of  the  Word,  in  this 
great  sense.  To  address  oneself  bravely  and  patiently 
to  the  making  of  a  character,  and  the  redemption  of  a 
world,  to  carry  out  to  life's  furthest  frontiers  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Spirit,  —  to  make  idealisms  and  consecra- 
tions manifest,  always  and  everywhere,  is  the  hardest 
thing  in  life,  just  as  it  is  the  whole  of  life. 

175 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

And  so,  without  really  meaning  that  it  should  be  so, 
we  deceive  ourselves,  thinking  that  we  obey,  when  we 
have  not  even  begun  to  obey.  The  preacher  forgets 
that  his  sermon  can  have  neither  meaning  nor  justifica- 
tion, if  it  be  not  a  clear  call  to  the  transformation  of 
life.  He  thinks  of  it  as  an  end  in  itself,  caresses  its 
phrases,  embroiders  its  sentences,  and  having  delivered 
it,  asks  only  that  people  shall  speak  well  of  it.  Those 
who  hear  criticise  its  deficiencies,  or  warm  themselves  in 
its  glowing  periods,  and  think  that  they  have  done  their 
duty  by  it  all  when  they  tell  the  preacher  that  they  have 
enjoyed  his  discourse.  And  meanwhile  we  are  dealing 
with  truth  which  has  no  meaning  at  all  if  it  does  not 
re-make  our  lives  and  our  world.  A  Lyddite  shell  is  a 
harmless  thing  compared  with  the  explosive  power  of 
Christian  truth;  there  is  dynamite  enough  in  every  word 
of  Jesus  Christ  to  blow  our  world  of  unbrotherliness  to 
pieces;  there  is  transforming  power  enough  in  every 
sentence  of  his,  to  answer  all  our  hopes.  We  are  always 
sailing  about  like  the  aviators  of  whom  we  read,  dropping 
bombs  which  do  not  explode,  because,  if  I  may  venture 
to  use  the  figure,  the  fuse  of  obedience  is  unlighted. 
Nay,  —  and  this  is  a  better  figure,  —  we  are  always 
making  brave  proclamations  of  a  better  world  which  is 
strangely  slow  in  coming,  because  we  do  not  go  out  to 
answer  our  own  proclamations,  or  set  up  the  empire 
which  we  seek  first  of  all  in  our  obedient  souls. 

And  now  to  end  with  ever  so  briefly,  how  shall  we 
begin  to  be  doers  of  the  Word?  Simply,  in  a  sentence, 
by  bringing  our  wills  into  action,  at  the  most  immediate 
point  of  contact,  between  life  and  duty.  Somewhere 
along  the  frontier  of  each  life  here  this  morning  there  is 
a  place  where  some  unfulfilled  duty  presses  squarely 
up  against  a  reluctant  will  —  a  region  where  we  need  no 

176 


DOERS  OF  THE  WORD 

further  instruction,  where  nothing  is  in  debate.  And 
from  that  point  the  benumbing  power  of  disobedience 
spreads  itself  through  the  whole  of  life.  Begin  there; 
and  begin  there  now.  I  do  not  know  what  it  is,  nor  why 
it  is,  that  you  have  hesitated  so  long  —  each  one  of  us 
must  answer  that  for  himself.  Nor  do  I  think,  when  we 
have  stripped  the  conduct  of  life  down  to  bedrock,  that 
there  is  any  way  of  beginning,  except  in  sheer  exercise 
of  wills  which  have  not  been  put  into  action. 

It  is  ourselves,  and  our  duty,  and  our  will;  and  though 
the  help  of  God  may  come  to  us  through  a  thousand 
channels,  there  is  one  thing  that  even  God  Himself  can- 
not do  —  He  cannot  put  our  wills  into  action  if  we  our- 
selves will  not  begin  to  act.  We  do  not  need  to  go  more 
than  one  step  at  a  time;  we  are  not  responsible  for  the 
full  triumph  of  the  campaign  upon  which  we  enter,  and 
above  all,  we  are  not  alone.  But  it  is  ours  to  begin. 
Then  step  by  step  we  shall  find  the  way  open,  duty  by 
duty  we  shall  establish  the  empire  of  an  holy  will; 
obedience  by  obedience  tides  of  power  will  come  in  to 
reinforce  us;  joy  and  peace  and  faith  and  strength  will 
fall  into  step  with  us  as  we  march  along;  in  the  end  we 
shall  find  ourselves  no  longer  soldiers  of  a  losing  cause, 
but  a  part  of  the  conquering  army  of  the  Omnipotent 
God. 

In  her  marvelous  preparation  for  the  tragic  exercise 
of  war,  Germany  had  arranged  every  detail  of  the  mobil- 
ization of  her  armies;  every  railroad  and  every  train 
on  every  road  had  its  war  schedule;  the  command  to 
mobilize  substituted  the  schedule  of  war  for  the  schedule 
of  peace  —  new  timings,  new  destinations,  new  duties. 
For  every  engineer  and  guard  on  the  road,  the  war 
schedule  began  at  the  first  stop  on  the  road  where  the 
news  was  proclaimed.     Meanwhile   every   soldier    in    the 

177 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

Empire,  halted  in  his  customary  occupations,  dropping 
his  tool  at  the  bench,  leaving  his  plow  in  the  furrow, 
was  making  his  way  to  his  appointed  station.  And  so  a 
million  men  were  gathered  together,  clothed  and  armed, 
and  sent  down  the  red  road  of  the  strife  of  the  nations, 
in  answer  to  a  single  word. 

Suppose  we  mobilized  like  that,  in  answer  to  the 
word  of  the  Prince  of  Peace  —  suppose  the  great  duties 
of  love  and  brotherhood  became  immediately  operative, 
halting  us  in  our  indecisions,  our  lethargies,  our  fears; 
facing  us  toward  new  obediences  and  calling  us  down 
roads  of  service  which  begin  at  our  very  feet,  to  the 
fields  of  the  battle  of  peace,  to  the  heights  of  duty  and 
love.  How  soon  and  how  splendidly  would  not  our 
world  be  remade! 

How  shall  the  better  day  ever  come  if  force  and  death 
obey  the  slightest  word  of  a  dominant  will,  while  love 
and  goodness  are  powerless  through  our  inaction  and 
hesitations?  O  God,  hasten  the  day  when  the  soldiers 
of  Jesus  Christ  shall  meet  His  life-giving  words  with 
a  majestic  obedience  in  which  our  dreams  shall  come 
true  and  great  causes  be  established!  And  God  help  us 
to  answer  that  prayer! 


178 


XIV 
WHERE  ARE  THE  DEAD? 

"  And  I  saw  a  great  zvhite  throne,  and  him  that  sat  in  it,  from  whose  face 
the  earth  and  the  heaven  fled  away.  .  .  .  And  I  saw  the  dead,  small  and  great, 
stand  before  God."  —  Revelation  20  :  11,  12. 

There  are  two  wonders  in  life  —  our  entrance,  and  our 
departure.  The  wonder  of  birth  and  growth  is  some- 
what dimmed  by  our  partial  familiarity  with  their  laws, 
and  still  more  by  the  slow  unfolding  of  the  conscious 
self;  consciousness  does  not  break  upon  us  in  mid-day 
glory  but  rises  like  the  dawn.  And  even  so,  we  are  hardly 
come  before  we  are  summoned  to  depart.  Here  the 
final  wonder  of  life  confronts  us  with  a  force  which 
nothing  can  soften.  We  are,  and  then  in  a  moment  we 
are  not,  and  in  our  going  we  pass  through  a  door  so 
jealously  guarded  that  not  a  whisper  comes  back  from 
those  who  cross  its  thresholds.  Generations  seem  hardly 
more  than  wintry  snow-flakes  falling  upon  the  sea  — 
they  fill  the  air  with  their  drifting  movements,  then 
touch  the  water  and  are  forever  lost.  Those  who  leave 
us  are  dear  to  us  and  life  is  empty  without  them,  and 
many  things  are  lost  in  their  going;  and  so  we  ask  into 
what  country  they  have  taken  their  journey  and  into 
what  state  they  are  come,  and,  if  death  be  the  end  of 
life,  then  what  is  death  and,  since  there  is  but  one  final 
account  to  be  given  of  all  men  everywhere  and  always  — 
then  where  are  the  dead? 

There  are  but  three  answers  to  this  question,  three 
inclusive  answers,  I  mean.  The  first  is  the  answer  of 
sheer  materialism  —  they   are   in    the   dust   beneath   our 

179 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

feet.  Life,  the  materialist  tells  us,  is  nothing  more  than 
the  by-product  of  the  complex  organization  of  matter. 
He  does  not  pretend  to  know  what  matter  is,  but  he 
believes  that  when  matter  has  reached  a  certain  level  of 
organization  it  begins  to  quicken  in  the  simplest  forms 
of  cellular  life  and  that  as  it  mounts  from  level  to  level 
it  sways  in  the  grasses,  blossoms  in  the  flowers,  flies  in 
the  birds,  grows  strong  in  the  lion  and  swift  in  the  deer, 
and  finally  in  its  most  delicate  and  intricate  forms  of 
organization  comes  to  consciousness  in  the  human  brain, 
and  that  thereafter  all  that  men  are  and  do  is  but  the 
manifold  expression  of  an  organization  of  matter  so  com- 
plex that  we  cannot  untangle  its  complexities,  maintained 
with  great  difficulty  at  the  very  highest  levels,  and  al- 
ways after  a  little  while  yielding  to  the  forces  which 
strive  to  undo  it. 

When  the  organization  is  undone,  what  is  begotten  of 
the  organization  dissolves  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  a 
vision.  Something  has  failed  in  the  physical  mechanism, 
and  thereafter  consciousness  is  as  if  it  had  never  been; 
what  was  bright  and  beautiful,  strong  and  creative  has 
vanished  out  of  the  world  as  a  note  of  music  when  the 
violin  is  muted,  or  as  an  organ  tone  when  the  air  within 
the  pipes  has  ceased  to  vibrate.  Then  the  dust  returns 
to  its  dust,  but  no  spirit  to  the  God  who  gave  it,  for 
there  is  no  spirit  to  return.  If  this  be  true,  the  earth 
is  a  vast  sepulchre  and  all  we  tread  upon  the  dust  of 
vanished  forms,  and  there  is  but  one  answer  to  all  our 
longings  and  questionings  and  pretestings  —  when  the 
machine  has  done  its  work  it  is  sent  back  to  the  scrap- 
heap,  and  we  are  but  idle  dreamers  if  we  ask  or  hope  for 
ourselves  another  fate. 

Now  there  is  a  certain  measure  of  truth  in  all  this  way 
of  thinking  about  death.     Our  great  Mother-earth  does 

180 


WHERE  ARE  THE  DEAD? 

take  back  into  her  bosom  all  that  she  gave  to  begin  with 
and  through  her  kind  alchemy  undoes  it  all  to  build  it  up 
again  —  like  Penelope  of  old,  raveling  in  the  darkness 
what  she  wove  in  the  light.  But  I,  for  my  part,  cannot 
accept  this  answer  to  our  age-old  question;  it  is  far  too 
simple.  There  are  elements  in  life  which  have  no  com- 
mon fortune  with  the  dust.  When  James  Russell  Lowell 
sings  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 

"  For  him  her  Old-World  moulds  aside  she  threw, 
And,  choosing  sweet  clay  from  the  breast 
Of  the  exhausted  West, 
With  stuff  untainted  shaped  a  hero  new," 

his  song  is  something  more  than  a  fine  poetic  figure. 
Abraham  Lincoln  is  the  child  of  the  soil  from  which  he 
sprang.  But  no  sepulchre  which  men  have  ever  built 
can  contain  him;  nay,  should  the  whole  earth  become 
his  tomb  and  be  set  apart  to  no  other  service,  he  would 
still  be  greater  than  his  sepulchre;  the  dust  of  a  world 
would  not  weigh  in  the  balance  against  the  great  quali- 
ties of  his  soul.  No,  it  is  not  enough  to  say  that  the 
dead  are  in  the  dust  beneath  our  feet.  The  house  of 
clay  in  which  they  lived  is  there,  but  personality  is  not 
there  nor  high  spiritual  passion  nor  what  men  have 
dreamed  and  done.  You  cannot  bury  on  any  battle- 
field the  qualities  of  courage  and  sacrifice  which  the 
battle-field  has  evoked.  The  high  spirit  of  the  English- 
men who  held  their  thin  red  line  before  the  charge  of  the 
Imperial  Guard  on  the  field  of  Waterloo  is  not  buried  in 
the  mound  which  the  Lion  of  Waterloo  guards.  What 
was  fine  and  flaming  in  the  militant  passion  of  Napo- 
leonic France  does  not  lie  forever  hidden  in  the  soil  over 
which  the  wounded  Eagle  which  commemorates  the 
dauntlessness  of  the  French  now  broods.  Nor  is  St. 
Paul  forgotten  in  a  tomb  somewhere  outside  the  gates 

181 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

of  Rome,  nor  is  John  Huss  beneath  the  stone  which 
marks  his  resting  place,  nor  is  Jesus  Christ  in  that  new- 
laid  sepulchre  wherein  none  had  ever  lain,  —  outside 
the  walls  of  Jerusalem. 

There  is  therefore  a  second  answer  to  the  question  — 
where  are  the  dead?  And  it  is  this:  they  live  in  the 
continuing  generations  and  are  made  enduring  in  the 
influences  which  they  exert.  There  is,  say  those  who 
make  this  answer,  a  kind  of  corporate  immortality.  Men 
and  women  are  not  grains  of  sand,  each  separate,  com- 
plete and  lonely  in  himself.  The  life  of  the  generations 
is  so  interwoven  that  we  cannot  undo  the  fabric.  Fathers 
live  again  in  their  sons,  mothers  in  their  daughters,  and 
the  dead  in  the  living.  Each  one  of  us  makes  some 
bequest,  establishes  some  little  part  of  himself  in  this 
corporate  human  life,  and  then,  although  he  passes  out 
into  silence,  what  he  has  been  and  done  abides.  So 
love  lives  in  all  those  whom  love  has  blessed;  so  the 
teacher  lives  in  his  scholars;  and  the  musician  in  his 
song;  the  artist  in  those  who  rejoice  in  his  vision  of 
beauty;  and  the  scholar  in  those  who  have  been  in- 
structed in  his  efTorts  for  truth;  the  saint  lives  in  the 
impulses  for  sanctity  which  he  communicates  to  the  world ; 
the  statesman  lives  in  his  fatherland  and  the  soldier  in 
the  causes  for  which  he  died. 

Now  there  is  no  denying  the  significance  of  this  answer. 
There  is  much  in  it  which  may  well  hearten  us  all. 
When  we  contemplate  the  enduringness  of  the  wise  and 
the  great,  and  remember  how  though  Socrates  drank 
the  hemlock  he  has  been  alive  for  two  thousand  years, 
and  how  Plato  still  discourses  loftily  and  Homer  sings, 
and  Isaiah  thunders,  and  Moses  legislates,  and  St.  Paul 
meditates  upon  grave  themes  or  breaks  out  into  spiritual 
rhapsodies,   and   how   those  whose   very  names   are    for- 

182 


WHERE  ARE  THE   DEAD? 

gotten  still  live  in  the  well-being  of  humanity  and  are 
remembered  though  unknown  —  when  we  consider  this 
I  say  —  it  is  enough  to  hold  all  of  us  bravely  to  our 
task,  and  to  console  us  for  the  all  too  brief  ending  of 
life.  For  humanity,  after  all,  is  a  great  fellowship  and 
the  generations  are  one,  and  we  who  live  not  in  our- 
selves but  in  our  human  world  are  at  least  as  enduring 
as  humanity  itself,  and  share  the  fortunes  of  that  which 
is    vaster    than    ourselves. 

And  yet  this  answer  does  not  satisfy  us,  for  it  does 
not  deal  fairly  with  personality  itself.  It  is  much  to 
save  influence  —  it  would  be  infinitely  much  more  to 
save  the  sources  of  influence.  The  immortality  of 
influence  is  a  pallid  and  doubtful  immortality.  It  is 
something  to  live  in  memory,  but  after  all,  this  is  only 
a  partial  life,  possessing  neither  substance  nor  rich  con- 
tinuing force,  nor  does  this  answer  meet  the  deeper  needs 
of  the  heart.  Our  lack  of  satisfaction  with  any  answer 
to  the  question  of  the  ages  which  assumes  the  annihila- 
tion of  personality  is  not  conceit  nor  selfishness,  it  is 
deeper  than  that.  We  protest  instinctively  against  the 
waste  of  it  all,  and  the  tragic  brevity  of  it  all,  and  the 
sundering  of  relationships,  and  the  untimely  ending  of 
what  never  should  have  been  begun  if  death  is  to  be  the 
end.  The  real  worth  of  life  is  not  in  the  broken  in- 
fluences which  outlast  us  but  in  the  rich  and  glowing 
content  of  personality  itself,  in  love  and  fellowship  and 
the  knitting  of  soul  to  soul,  and  whatever  does  not  save 
that  is  unspeakably  wasteful.  More  than  this,  such  a 
corporate  immortality  as  the  immortality  of  influence 
implies  is  all  too  pathetically  brief.  Our  world  is  a  dying 
world,  though  it  may  endure  for  countless  generations; 
our  sun  is  a  dying  sun,  though  it  may  shine  for  eons  yet. 
The  stored  forces  of  the  world  are  being  scattered,  never 

183 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

to  be  gathered  together  again.  Some  day  a  dead 
world  will  drift  about  a  darkening  sun  and  the  last 
monument  to  human  habitation  be  lost  in  chaos.  Noth- 
ing will  be  left  of  humanity,  not  even  undecipherable 
records.  What  then  becomes  of  the  immortality  of 
influence?     It  is  something,  but  it  is  not  enough. 

There  is  a  third  answer  to  the  question  and  that  is 
the  text  of  the  morning:  "The  dead  are  with  God." 
It  is  highly  significant  that  the  last  great  vision  in  the 
last  book  of  the  Bible  leaves  the  dead,  great  and  small, 
in  the  power  of  God.  The  apostle  sees  a  throne  before 
which  all  else  is  fled,  and  on  that  throne  a  just  and  lov- 
ing power,  and  gathered  there  all  those  who  have  passed 
beyond  the  shadows  —  and  that  is  all.  Heaven  and 
earth  are  done,  there  is  nothing  left  save  God  and  the 
spirits  of  men.  When  we  are  done  with  all  our  specu- 
lating we  may  rest  in  this  third  great  answer  which  is 
the  answer  of  faith,  "The  dead  are  with  God."  For  our 
belief  in  immortality  is  after  all  a  supreme  act  of  faith. 
Immortality  does  not  submit  itself  to  demonstration  nor 
can  logic  build  any  roads  by  which  we  may  find  our 
way  into  that  undiscovered  country,  but  there  are  cer- 
tain governing  conclusions  in  life  which  are  reached 
neither  by  experience  nor  demonstration;  they  are 
simply  demanded  by  all  the  deeper  needs  of  life,  and 
without  them  we  are  put  not  only  to  permanent  intel- 
lectual but  permanent  spiritual  confusion.  Immortality 
is  such  a  conclusion.  There  are  great  cumulative 
grounds  for  its  acceptance.  Without  it  the  greatest 
problems  of  life  are  left  unsolved,  the  greatest  needs  of 
the  soul  are  left  unmet.  Our  faith  in  immortality  is 
involved  in  the  other  great  confidences  of  life,  and 
supremely  it  is  dependent  upon  our  confidence  in  God. 

If  God  is  but  a  strain  of  tendency  or  another  way  of 

184 


WHERE   ARE  THE  DEAD? 

thinking  about  the  sum  total  of  the  forces  and  realities 
of  the  universe,  immortality  may  be  true  or  it  may  not; 
there  is  nothing  in  the  thought  of  such  a  God  as  that  to 
guarantee  it.  But,  if  God  is  loving  good-will  and  wis- 
dom, conscious,  supreme,  unresting  —  then,  whatever 
life  needs  for  its  completion  lies  easily  within  His  power. 
He  will  do  whatever  is  just  and  assure  to  us  whatever 
is  right.  He  holds  the  perfect  circle  in  His  infinite 
vision,  we  see  but  the  broken  round.  We  may  trust 
ourselves  to  Him  in  life,  and  we  may  trust  ourselves, 
and  those  whom  we  have  loved,  to  Him  in  death.  He 
will  not  permit  love  to  be  cheated  nor  justice  to  be 
mocked,  nor  will  He  allow  what  has  cost  so  much  and 
has  been  won  through  such  travail,  and  what  is  rich  in 
such  possibilities  —  human  personality,  to  be  poured 
out  as  water  on  the  dry  land,  and  so  forever  lost.  Rev- 
erence and  reason,  faith  and  experience  can  make  no 
other  answer  to  the  question  of  the  ages  than  this  — 
the  dead  are  perforce  with  God,  and  He  will  deal  with 
them  justly  and  lovingly  as  part  of  the  triumphant 
process  of  a  just  and  loving  will. 

If  the  dead  are  in  the  hands  of  God,  then  they  are  in 
the  keeping  of  a  power  great  enough  to  overcome  all  the 
difficulties  which  any  faith  in  immortality  is  called  upon 
to  meet.  It  is  idle  to  underestimate,  or  to  belittle  these 
difficulties.  We  have  no  experience  of  personality  except 
in  bodily  form.  We  cannot  even  imagine  disembodied 
personality.  We  cannot  localize  the  spiritual.  When 
the  body  is  silent,  still  and  cold,  imagination  is  touched 
as  by  the  chill  of  death  itself,  and  faith  does  but  "  fal- 
ter where  it  firmly  trod."  Yet  when  we  measure  what 
immortality  demands  against  what  the  power  of  God  has 
already  accomplished,  we  have  no  reason  to  doubt  His 
power  to  keep  that  which  He  has  created  against  even 

185 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

death  itself.  The  road  which  life  has  travelled  since  its 
first  far-off  faint  beginnings  to  its  full  expression  in  per- 
sonality is  a  vastly  more  difficult  and  seemingly  impos- 
sible road  than  the  road  which  personality,  once  secured 
and  matured,  would  need  to  travel  to  rise  above  the 
shock  and  change  of  death.  There  was  a  time  when  this 
world  of  ours  was  but  a  mist  of  fire,  swinging  in  its  new- 
found orbit  around  its  mother  sun.  There  was  another 
time  when  the  mist  of  fire  had  become  a  flattened  sphere 
and  prophetic  crusts,  germs  of  continents  still  to  be, 
began  to  form  upon  its  molten  mass.  Suppose  that  then, 
standing  upon  the  first  crust  which  would  bear  the 
weight  of  a  human  foot,  with  a  comrade  to  whom  all 
the  history  of  the  globe  was  as  yet  a  book  unopened, 
some  seer  speaking  out  of  a  God-given  vision  of  the 
world  to  be  had  said,  "  this  still  molten  mass  will  cool 
itself  and  hollow  its  surfaces  into  chambers  where  the 
seas  shall  be  gathered  together,  and  lift  itself  into  great 
mountain  ranges,  and  spread  itself  abroad  in  plains; 
seas  of  an  eonian  future  will  become  rich  with  innum- 
erable forms  of  life,  the  plains  will  clothe  themselves 
with  verdure  as  with  a  garment,  solemn  forests  will 
mantle  the  flanks  of  the  hills,  the  air  will  become  vocal 
with  singing  birds,  the  jungles  mysterious  with  teeming 
forms  of  life.  The  very  crust  beneath  our  feet  will 
bloom  in  color  and  grow  rich  with  perfume,  and  in  the 
fulness  of  time  man,  last  birth  of  this  womb  of  fire,  shall 
walk  erect  upon  it  and  battle  his  way  up  long  ascents, 
build  his  cities,  sing  his  songs,  dream  his  dreams,  meas- 
ure the  pulsations  of  light,  retell  the  story  of  the  past, 
share  hate  with  the  brute  and  love  with  God,  build  his 
temples  of  prayer  and  worship,  meditate  upon  his  fate  — 
and  refuse  to  believe  himself  wholly  kin  to  the  dust  from 
which  he  has  sprung." 

186 


WHERE   ARE   THE   DEAD? 

I  think  the  prophet's  comrade  would  have  said  to 
him  —  "This  is  impossible,  there  is  absolutely  no  indica- 
tion here  of  what  you  anticipate.  I  can  conceive  of  no 
possible  connection  between  such  a  world  as  we  now 
look  upon  and  the  world  which  you  describe."  And  yet, 
what  I  have  been  trying  to  say  is  simply  a  record  of 
what  has  really  happened.  Cannot  a  God  who  has 
already  done  so  much  as  this  do  the  one  last  thing 
needed  to  crown  His  work  with  love?  We  may  leave 
our  dead  in  the  power  of  God;  He  is  strong  enough  to 
keep  them  still  as  His  own. 

We  may  leave  our  dead  in  the  love  of  God.  There 
are  a  thousand  questions  a  lonely  heart  will  ask  —  there 
is  but  one  answer  —  they  are  with  God. 

Oh,  we  have  built  our  heavens  of  desires  and  our  hells 
of  fears,  and  our  worlds  of  pallid  shades.  We  have  in- 
vested the  future  with  unspeakable  terror,  or  clothed  it 
with  cloudless  light,  we  have  erected  our  cities  four- 
square with  their  streets  of  gold,  we  have  spread  abroad 
the  glory  of  the  eternal  day  upon  the  hills  and  meadows 
of  the  land  of  pure  delight.  All  this  is  natural  enough 
but  it  is  all  beside  the  mark.  We  need  only  to  ask  that 
an  infinite  love,  a  love  which  has  lain  about  life  like 
light  from  the  very  beginning,  unfailing,  patient,  tender, 
unspeakably  compassionate,  should  wait  behind  the  veil 
to  receive  those  whom  God  calls  and  we  dismiss.  What- 
ever life  really  needs,  God's  love  will  secure.  We  may 
rest  in  that.  If  we  need  cities  and  fields  and  mountains, 
we  shall  find  them  in  the  Land  of  Pure  Delight;  if  we 
need  healing  and  comfort,  we  shall  find  that  there;  if  we 
need  nurture  and  new  opportunity,  we  shall  find  that 
there, —  occupations,  relationships,  hopes  and  purposes  — 
all  that  life  needs  to  be  life.  I  would  not  build  walls  of 
gold  or  ivory  for  the  final  habitation  of  my  dead,   nor 

187 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE   OF  LIFE 

imagine  celestial  scenes,  nor  try  to  picture  where  and 
how  they  are  —  I  would  seek  rather  for  them  an  un- 
broken and  unbreakable  relationship  with  the  love  and 
power  of  God,  and  leave  them  there  blessed  and  secure. 

They  are  always  in  the  keeping  of  the  justice  of  God. 
I  do  not  believe  that  the  life  hereafter  is  to  be  a  morally 
colorless  life.  I  cannot  think  of  punishment,  vindictive 
and  unrelenting,  as  any  part  at  all  of  the  divine  pur- 
pose —  all  that  is  a  travesty  on  God,  a  misunderstand- 
ing of  the  heart  of  the  eternal.  But  no  man  can  think 
of  the  eternal  order  as  an  order  where  no  account  is 
taken  of  the  ways  in  which  we  have  wounded  and  mis- 
used our  lives  and  the  lives  of  others.  I  think  it  will 
go  hard  with  selfishness  when  the  dead  stand  before  God. 
There  are  cleansing  fires  compared  with  which  the  fires 
of  Dante's  vision  are  cold  as  ice.  Will  it  be  nothing 
when  we  find  ourselves  in  the  great  white  light  of  truth 
and  justice,  face  to  face  for  the  first  time  with  eternal 
realities,  seen  without  a  shadow?  Will  it  be  nothing 
when  with  unclouded  sight  we  see  the  far-flung  conse- 
quences of  what  we  have  been  and  done,  and  the  rare 
beauty  of  what  we  have  missed?  Then  we  shall  be  cut 
back  to  whatever  is  worth  keeping,  in  an  order  where 
the  only  values  are  spiritual,  and  the  things  of  sense  are 
discarded   as  outgrown   garments. 

Some  of  us  who  have  seemed  to  ourselves,  and  even 
to  our  neighbors,  to  stand  high  in  the  present  world,  will 
find  so  little  left  of  us  that  we  shall  need  the  infinitely 
discerning  love  of  God  to  find  in  our  distorted  souls 
even  the  germs  of  what  will  endure  a  happier  replanting, 
and  some  of  us  who  have  here  been  forgotten  and  for 
whom  such  a  world  as  ours  has  had  little  use,  will  stand 
among  the  great  and  strong  when  life  is  tested  by  its 
fitness  for  spiritual  relationships.     Justice  does  not  pun- 

188 


WHERE  ARE  THE  DEAD? 

ish  but  justice  corrects,  and  correction  is  never  easy  and 
rarely  painless.  If  the  dead  are  with  God,  then  His 
correcting,  purging  power  will  have  its  way  with  them. 
Whether  this  means  universal  restoration  no  man  would 
dare  to  say;  it  may  be  that  the  most  proud  and  wilful 
of  us  may  possess  within  ourselves  such  power  of  resist- 
ance to  the  correcting  love  of  God  as  to  make  eternity 
a  long  exile  from  the  reality  of  His  presence  and  His  joy. 
I  do  not  know  —  but  I  do  know  that  wherever  there 
shall  be  in  any  soul  here  or  hereafter  any  longing  after 
better  things,  or  any  stirring  of  repentance,  or  any  reach- 
ing out  of  will  or  desire,  no  matter  how  faint  or  hesi- 
tant, toward  love  and  light  and  goodness,  that  then 
either  here  or  hereafter,  now  or  in  eternity,  the  saving 
love  of  God  will  flow  out  to  meet  that  soul  even  before 
its  better  impulses  have  become  conscious  to  itself  and 
then  and  there,  as  here  and  now,  the  power  of  God  will 
be  pledged  to  our  redemption. 

The  dead  are  in  the  keeping  of  a  God  of  infinite 
resource.  His  work  is  never  done.  Is  it  too  much  to 
believe  that  as  He  has  begun  His  creative  work  in  the 
region  of  the  temporal.  He  will  complete  it  in  the  rela- 
tionships of  the  eternal?  Can  you  think  of  an  infinitely 
wise  and  loving  power  resting  content  with  a  world  like 
ours,  or  permitting  Himself  to  be  judged  by  the  in- 
justices and  inequalities  and  tragic  failures  and  imper- 
fect triumphs  of  our  unfinished  human  life?  George 
Frederick  Watts  spent  the  last  five  years  of  his  life 
shaping  one  heroic  figure  through  which  he  sought  to 
express  his  conception  of  Physical  Energy.  Morning 
after  morning  the  noise  of  his  sculptor's  mallet  roused 
his  household  and  when  they  looked  out  in  the  gray 
dawn  there  was  the  old  man  at  his  task  striving  to 
shape    in    marble    the   mighty   vision    which    thrilled    his 

189 


THE   GODWARD   SIDE   OF   LIFE 

soul.  When  death  stayed  his  hand  the  work  was  still 
unfinished  —  but  he  sought  to  finish  it.  Do  you  think 
that  God  would  do  less  than  Watts?  For  ten  years 
Augustus  St.  Gaudens  wrought  at  the  statue  of  Phillips 
Brooks,  which  you  may  pass  any  morning  in  the  shadow 
of  Trinity  Church  —  when  death  stayed  his  hand  he 
left  it  so  confessedly  incomplete  that  both  the  friends 
of  St.  Gaudens  and  Phillips  Brooks  wish  it  had  never 
been  cast,  —  but  he  sought  to  finish  it.  Will  God 
do  less  than  Augustus  St.  Gaudens?  Schubert's  un- 
finished symphony  still  haunts  us  with  its  many  sug- 
gestions of  what  it  might  have  been,  and  vibrates  with 
the  musician's  passion  beating  against  the  bars  of  time 
and  fate  —  but  he  sought  to  finish  it.  Will  God  do  less 
than  Schubert?  The  whole  of  Michelangelo's  life  is 
but  the  story  of  the  battle  of  his  transcendent  genius 
against  conditions  which  were  always  so  defeating  him 
that  what  he  left  us  is  only  the  broken  torso  of  what  he 
might  have  done  —  and  yet  he  struggled  on.  Will  God 
do  less  than  Michelangelo?  For  life  as  it  now  is,  in 
the  individual  or  the  race,  is  but  an  unfinished  symphony, 
a  design  sketched  but  not  completed,  a  prophecy  pa- 
thetically unfulfilled.  Can  death  defeat  God?  I  will 
not  believe  it.  The  dead,  small  and  great,  are  with  Him. 
He  will  finish  His  work. 

Little  children  are  in  His  keeping,  He  will  perfect  the 
bright  promise  of  their  lives,  they  will  grow  in  the 
love-lit  fields  of  His  unfailing  care  as  they  would  never 
have  grown  in  our  misty,  shadowed  earth  life.  The 
young  and  the  strong  are  with  Him  —  here  we  think  of 
them  as  columns  overthrown  —  there  they  will  be  built 
as  pillars  in  the  Temple  of  our  God.  The  wise  and 
mature  are  with  Him  —  here  they  left  us  when  we  had 
most  need  of  them  —  there  they  will  add  weight  to  the 

190 


WHERE   ARE  THE   DEAD? 

deliberations  of  heavenly  councils.  The  sorrowing  are 
with  Him — they  will  pluck  the  flowers  of  comfort  from 
heavenly  fields.  The  lonely  are  with  Him  —  they  walk 
in  radiant  comradeship.  The  maimed  and  bruised  and 
broken  are  with  Him  —  He  will  make  them  whole  again. 
The  thwarted  and  defeated  are  with  Him  —  they  will  take 
up  their  work  anew  and  perfect  it  in  radiant  tutelage. 

Michelangelo  will  paint  his  Last  Judgment  anew,  no 
longer  sad  and  disillusioned,  but  dipping  his  brush  in 
the  colors  of  an  unclouded  spiritual  vision.  Schubert 
will  finish  his  unfinished  symphony  and  attune  it  to 
celestial  choirings.  George  Frederick  Watts  will  re- 
baptize  his  rare  and  shining  genius  in  an  infinite  power. 
Those  who  never  had  a  chance  will  see  the  doors  of 
opportunity  open  as  on  golden  hinges.  The  victims  of 
the  injustices  of  time  will  quiet  their  embittered  souls 
in  the  Divine  integrity.  The  great  will  be  greater  still, 
and  the  saints  grow  rich  in  deepened  sanctity.  Do  you 
say  this  is  a  dream?  Aye,  it  is  a  dream,  but  it  is  a 
dream  into  which  the  very  justice  of  God  and  His  power 
to  complete  what  He  had  begun  and  the  whole  weight  of 
the  Christian  revelation  are  so  inextricably  interwoven 
that  if  the  dream  fails  His  love  and  justice  will  fail. 
If  this  is  only  a  dream,  God  is  only  a  dream  and  the 
world  the  vast  caprice  of  a  mocking  power.  There  are 
some  dreams  upon  which  a  man  will  venture  all  —  I  will 
venture  all  upon  a  dream  like  this. 

If  the  dead  are  with  God  they  are  with  the  Father  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  in  whom  life  and  immortality 
were  brought  to  light.  All  that  men  hoped  or  dreamed 
of  deathlessness,  all  their  gropings  through  the  shadows, 
all  the  conclusions  of  the  philosopher  or  the  lyric  assur- 
ances of  the  poet  have  become  real  and  definite  and 
glowing  in  the  risen   life  of  Jesus   Christ.      It  has   been 

191 


THE  GODWARD   SIDE  OF  LIFE 

easy  to  believe  in  immortality  since  he  conquered  death. 
There  are  certain  substances  which,  put  into  a  chemical 
solution,  will  crystallize  its  unstable  forms  and  give  them 
thereafter  a  perpetual  solidity.  So  Jesus  Christ  with  his 
cloudless  confidence  in  immortality  and  his  demonstra- 
tion of  the  power  of  it  in  his  own  life,  coming  into  a 
world  where  men  had  hoped  and  speculated,  but  where 
they  never  dared  be  certain,  has  crystallized  our  faith; 
hereafter  it  has  the  solidity  of  his  divine  revelation. 

And  I,  for  my  part,  rest  securely,  not  on  what  is 
incidental  in  Jesus'  demonstration  of  immortality,  but 
what  is  central  in  his  revelation;  not  alone  upon  the 
recorded  incidents  of  the  Resurrection,  but  upon  the  mas- 
sive necessity  of  it.  Here  was  one  so  open  to  the 
Father's  will,  so  divinely  rich  in  his  experience  of  God 
and  so  perfectly  one  with  the  divine  nature  that  he  was 
the  divine  nature  made  incarnate,  and  who  by  virtue  of 
his  perfect  identification  with  God  was  not  able  as  his 
apostle  says,  "to  be  holden  with  the  dead."  The  empty 
tomb  of  the  Resurrection  morning  demonstrates  that 
where  life  is  lived  in  faith  and  devotion  and  unity  with 
God,  then  it  is  always  eternal.  Yes,  the  dead  are  with 
God,  and  we  may  leave  them  there,  confident,  unafraid. 
Heaven  and  earth  may  flee  away  but  the  throne  of  His 
love  and  wisdom  and  power  is  unshaken,  and  when  all 
else  is  dissolved  there  shall  be  left  of  all  the  travail  of 
this  world  of  ours,  not  its  cities,  nor  its  Avealth,  nor  its 
monuments,  nor  even  its  seas  and  its  mountains,  but 
only  those  who  have  made  it  for  a  little  while  their 
temporal  habitation,  and  who  were  called  through  gates 
of  shadow  into  lands  of  light.  Only  those,  I  say,  and 
their  Father,  God  —  personality  with  personality,  soul 
with  soul  in  the  bonds  of  an  endless  life. 


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